European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease (ECCMID) is a fantastic opportunity every year to meet with existing collaborators from across the world, find new people working in similar areas, and hear about exciting research happening beyond your immediate field. I particularly enjoyed the breadth of infectious diseases research being discussed, from lab-based molecular science right up to global policy studies. It was reassuring to talk about the challenges so many of us face when studying AMR (for example the inconsistencies and difficulties in linking antibiotic use data with AMR data to determine the effectiveness of interventions), and identify possible policy options that could be implemented to help address those gaps.

This year, one of my favourite presentations was from Kat Holt, co-director of the AMR Centre who gave a keynote lecture that captured the importance of genomic surveillance data, networks and knowledge sharing for an audience filled with both technical and non-technical people. As someone who has one foot in policy and another in academia, it was great to see how every piece of research can feed into (and can be influenced by) global strategies.