Punctuated Equilibria examines the political, economic, and technological factors shaping European vaccine resilience and manufacturing between 1990 and 2025. Focusing on influenza and coronaviruses, the project uses an efficiency-robustness framework to assess how officials and industry planners in major European vaccine hubs (Britain, France, Belgium, Germany) navigated cost-efficiency pressures and the need to maintain surge resilience during pandemic and inter-pandemic phases. It also examines the role of European Union (EU) market and regulatory integration in shaping manufacturing ecosystem. Punctuated Equlibria has three lines of inquiry:

1. How do EU market integration, regulatory bodies such as the European Medicines Agency (EMA), emerging EU preparedness frameworks, and expanding immunisation schedules impact vaccine manufacturing ecosystems (factories and supply chains) in Western Europe?

2. Which political and economic strategies were employed to maintain emergency surge capacity during interpandemic phases and how successful were they?

3. What impact are technological innovations such as vaccine platforms having on EU manufacturing ecosystems, vaccine resilience, and pandemic preparedness?

The project builds on oral histories on vaccine development and trials conducted with Dr Samantha Vanderslott at the Oxford Vaccine Group between 2020 and 2022.