RB is investing $25 million to set up the Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute (RGHI) which is a research and innovation hub that will bridge epidemiology, public health, and behavioural insights to generate practical, high-quality scientific research that leads to enduring behaviour change.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed public health to the top of the global agenda. At RB, we see the need for a new paradigm that brings together the highest quality scientific based evidence and informed public health recommendations to generate large-scale behaviour change for a cleaner, healthier world,” said Laxman Narasimhan, CEO, RB.
“Today we’re announcing our commitment to convene a group of multi-disciplinary experts who, like us, believe real change on a global scale is within reach if we translate science-based evidence and consumer behavioural insights into sustainable hygienic practices that can be adopted globally. This ambitious goal is the result of our belief that the highest quality hygiene is a right and not a privilege,” he added.
The company’s commitment to global hygiene research and education includes the formation of an Expert Panel with to guide these research efforts at leading academic institutions around the world.
The creation of a Global Hygiene Institute with physical infrastructure, with a governing board will be supported by full-time staff, ongoing research, and education programming driven by expert researchers and educators.
Through the establishment of a fellowship program with leading universities, RGHI will generate practical, informed public health research and recommendations that champion global hygiene as the foundation of health. The Governing Board will determine specific areas for research and will work with the Expert Panel to award the fellowships to promising early career academics, who will become Reckitt Fellows. In addition to the fellowships, the Institute will award grants to institutions for open, collaborative, cross-functional research. The Expert Panel will further define the parameters of these awards.
The Governing Board and Expert Panel include Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Dame Sally Davies, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor Feng Cheng, Research Center for Public Health, Tsinghua University School of Medicine, Tsinghua, Dr. Randeep Guleria, Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Professor Dr. Albert Ko, Department Chair and Professor of Epidemiology, Yale School of Medicine and Professor Teo Yik Ying, Dean, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore.
