Discipline attraction and preclinical models

Two grouped requirements sit under this need. The first is funding instruments that pull cardiologists, AI and data scientists, epidemiologists, and health economists into women’s health. The second is funding for sex-inclusive preclinical infrastructure, meaning animal models, female cell lines, and tissue biobanks staged by reproductive phase. Most women’s health questions are biological-system questions before they are reproductive-system questions. Without cardiologists and female cell lines, the evidence base stays narrow, and preclinical-to-clinical translation continues to fail women at the rate it has done for the past three decades.

A Nordic funder-level preclinical mandate on the model of the one adopted by UK MRC in September 2022, and the NIH SABV policy in force since 2016, paired with one shared Nordic facility operating under the SIRF framework, would close the architectural gap. The question of discipline attraction is already being addressed structurally through centre design, and does not require a separate instrument. The five national research councils are positioned to lead on the funder-mandate side, and the existing centres on the facility side.