Understanding Lessons from the IPCC to Inform the AMR Panel

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has become a reference point for the design of international scientific advisory bodies. This paper examines what lessons from its experience may inform the creation of a new global panel on antimicrobial resistance. Drawing on interviews, roundtable discussions, and extensive research on the climate body, we identify two areas most relevant to the early design phase of such a panel: how to ensure that knowledge is taken up and acted upon, and how to enable meaningful participation by low- and middle-income countries. For actionable products, we find that designing assessments with the active involvement of both knowledge producers and decision-makers is critical to ensure the relevance and authority of final products. For equitable participation, the climate panel identifies both the challenges and opportunities. Barriers range from resource constraints and unequal access to literature, to difficulties in sustaining engagement over time. Addressing these requires sustained capacity-building strategies such as trust funds, regional representation, skill-building, and support for underrepresented voices. Through the climate experience, we can identify these two concerns as interlinked, with active expert and government participation a critical component of national and regional capacity building, knowledge transfer and uptake. The analysis highlights that a new antimicrobial resistance panel must be a learning organization— open to reflection, responsive to criticism, and capable of adapting its practices. Success will depend on balancing scientific authority with inclusiveness, and ensuring outputs that are legitimate, trusted, and actionable across diverse contexts.