Vaccines & Vaccinations: A Future Agenda for Social Sciences & Policy Workshop
On 24 November 2025, the University of Oxford’s Vaccines and Society Unit (VAS) convened vaccine scientists and social scientists from across the University and the wider global community to examine the challenges hindering global vaccine rollout and explore how social science methods can help address both current and emerging obstacles.
The Forum for Vaccine Social Science (FoVaS), a network of 17 scholars from 16 countries, opened the workshop, with organizers Stuart Blume and Samantha Vanderslott welcoming participants and outlining the network’s aims. Blume underscored the importance of understanding vaccines as public health tools rather than cures.
He noted that reducing discussions to “vaccine policy” or “coverage” risks overlooking the broader social, political, and mobilizational work that drives effective vaccination efforts. He urged attendees to reflect on how the day’s discussions could translate into tangible outcomes within their own communities, reminding them that documents alone do not enact change - people do.
Throughout the morning, four working groups reported on their collaborative efforts in the months leading up to the workshop, with Laura Mamo and Mia-Marie Hammarlin chairing, and Katharina Paul, Maria Brujic, Tracey Chantler, Ben Kasstan-Dabush, and Ken Shadlen as respondents.
1. Conceptualizing Vaccines
Led by Giampietro Gobo, this first group examined how vaccines are framed within wider systems of thought and how current political and policy environments shape these narratives. They highlighted the limitations of public debates that reduce vaccine views to being simply “for” or “against,” or to matters of individual choice. Instead, they encouraged re-framing discussions around multi-factor worldviews shaped by diverse and non-universal human experiences. With global biomedicalization and growing social crises influencing vaccine perceptions, they stressed the need for context-specific responses that acknowledge the heterogeneity of communities worldwide.
2. Equity and Equality
Led by Ramila Bisht and Tolu Osayomi, this working group explored intra- and international inequalities that affect under-served and minority communities, particularly in vaccine research representation and equitable access. Participants reflected on factors shaping coverage, including political instability, distrust, religious beliefs, and, critically, limited educational opportunities for women. The group emphasized the need to analyze inequities within communities rather than relying on universal frameworks, arguing that nuanced, contextually grounded approaches are essential for achieving long-term solutions.
3. Trust and Confidence
Led by Katie Attwell, this group focused on the relational and reciprocal nature of trust. They highlighted how mistrust and stigma can emerge on both sides of the doctor–patient relationship, often fueled by inconsistent encounters and inadequate contextualization of problems and solutions. This dynamic, combined with imperfect or incomplete clinical evidence, creates fertile ground for misinformation. The group also called for greater attention to pharmacovigilance within regulatory structures and how it can be better integrated into trust-building strategies.
4. Sovereignty and Autonomy
In the final presentation, Gabriela Bortz, led a discussion on the work their group had done examining national-level vaccine production, supply, and regulation. They argued that mastery of vaccine technology underpins sovereignty, enabling countries to tailor vaccine development and delivery to local needs. Such autonomy, they noted, can strengthen public trust, expand scientific capacity, and ensure affordability, particularly during outbreaks. Supporting national investment in vaccine science, they argued, is crucial for ensuring that locally relevant contexts inform responses to emerging pathogens.
Following a summary of the morning from Purendra Prasad and Jeremy Ward, the workshop then moved into a wide-ranging discussion among participants from FoVaS, Oxford, and the global social science community. Conversations spanned resource availability, communication successes and shortcomings, and the evolving landscape of vaccine hesitancy.
An analytical roundtable on vaccine futures, politics, and society featuring Bernice Hausman who chaired, with presenter Alan Silva and panelists Ken Shadlen, Ann Kelly, Valentin-Veron Toma, and David Franco, preceded a keynote from Sir Andrew Pollard, who illustrated the historical impact of childhood vaccines and explained how the UK’s immunization schedule has adapted over time.
The meeting closed with strengthened networks and a deeper shared understanding of the factors shaping present and future vaccine rollout efforts.
(Written by Hannah Shrader).