Partnerships That Produce Impactful Results:

On March 21, 2018, the IRRF joined more than 30 other organizations to participate in a convening of vision funders in Washington D. C. for the fifth consecutive year. This year’s high-level meeting, “Vision Research Funding Partnership V: The Eye in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI),” provided leaders of organizations that fund vision research the opportunity to think collectively about how to best support scientific research related to eye health and to maximize the impact of private funding in this area. Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) has hosted the convening since 2013 with co-sponsorship from the Glaucoma Research Foundation, E. Matilda Ziegler Foundation for the Blind, EyeSight Foundation of Alabama, International Retinal Research Foundation (IRRF), Lighthouse Guild, and Richman Associates, LLC (in-kind). A major goal of the meeting is to create a community of vision research funders that can collaborate when appropriate, thereby increasing the impact that any one organization can have on its own. A focus for this meeting was the collaborations of organizations over the past year that have led to successful projects with the potential to impact the field of vision research that may ultimately increase treatments, preventives and cures for vision loss and eye diseases. Sandra Blackwood of the IRRF reported on the partnership between that organization and RPB to provide two awards, the RPB/IRRF Catalyst Award for Innovative Research Approaches for Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD).

Above Photo: Vision Research Funding Partnership V: The Eye in the Age 2018