**3.3 Leverage current effort to strengthen research and evidence generation**

'The challenge for humans is to learn as much about influenza viruses as these viruses have already learned about us'. Higher education and research institutions should play a major role in this learning process and in helping to shape the post-COVID-19 world [110]. In conjunction with health research institutions, it should make meaningful contribution to this as all countries need to develop strong and sustainable core capacities at the intersection of health systems and research i.e., proactive, empowered and coordinated research committed to fair and equitable access [30]. Hence, there is good reason to support priority research agenda that leads to the development of sustainable global research platforms pre-prepared for the next disease X epidemic. This will allow for accelerated research, innovative solutions and Research and Development of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, as well as the timely and equitable access to these life-saving tools for those at highest risk [38]. Even before the pandemic, universities, 'sinking ships'?, were facing several challenges. These could be exacerbated by the post-pandemic situation. Thus, as indicated for US public universities, universities must not just adapt but lead with new models to resolve/mitigate current and future challenges and optimally use opportunities [68, 111, 112]. But, to date, in spite of the national commitment to evidence based development, the Ethiopian higher education and research institutions have contributed little and the prospects could be grim if, as projected and in line with historical trends during economic downturns universities come out of the pandemic weakened [90, 113–116]. One way to avert this could be to leverage the national and international/global solidarity that will be galvanized in response to the pandemic to strengthen university labs, develop research universities, forge partnerships and garner sustainable funding. In line with this, it is important to strengthen the labs in the universities and create strong coordination with other labs in the country to enhance tests and participate in sero-epidemiological studies [116, 117].
