JOURNAL OF IIMER May 2026 Germany Takes Action: A Decade of Funding for Post-Infectious International collaboration has always been central to this charity's strategy - and European partnership in particular. The formation of EMEA, EMERG, EMECC, and Young EMERG reflects a long-held conviction that progress in ME research would be built across borders before it was built within them. Experience suggested that meaningful change in the UK would depend, in part, on what was demonstrated and achieved elsewhere first. That conviction shaped the programme for IIMEC18. Rather than look to UK ministers or research agencies to open the conference - an avenue pursued many times over the years without result - we looked to where genuine political will for post-infectious disease research had actually materialised. The announcement of a decade of dedicated federal funding for post-infectious disease research in Germany represented exactly the kind of sustained, strategic commitment that patients with ME have long needed to see. So we invited Federal Minister of Research, Technology and Space Dorothee Bär to open IIMEC18. Minister Bär was unable to attend in person, but she kindly contributed the following to our journal. Journal of IiMER Invest in ME Research Page 20 of 35
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