Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have a profound impact on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) worldwide. In 2020, an estimated 374 million new infections occurred globally with one of the 4 curable STIs: syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and trichomoniasis. [1] The Global Health Sector Strategy on STIs (2016-2021) sets out several guiding principles for ending the STI epidemic as a public health problem,[2] but many gaps in evidence limit available guidance and tools, and progress toward STI prevention and control has been slow.[3] As an updated global strategy is developed for the next decade, new research is essential to strengthen the evidence base for new and improved interventions and guidelines including, but not limited to: the epidemiology, risk factors, and consequences of STIs; development and evaluation of behavioral, biomedical, clinical, and programmatic STI interventions and strategies; and scaling up existing interventions.

WHO is undertaking an exercise to identify global and regional STI research priorities. The systematic priority setting approach will involve consultation with a wide range of global stakeholders. A Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on STI Research Priority Setting, consisting of external experts, will contribute to the planning, development, and implementation of the research priority setting exercise. The STI Research Priority Setting TAG will be expected to oversee the process and to consider and include perspectives across regions, gender, populations and socioeconomics.

In its capacity as an advisory body to WHO, the STI Research Priority Setting TAG shall have the following functions:

1. Develop the priority setting framework (eg. clarify the objectives, context, scope, and focus areas of the process).
2. Review and provide comments to WHO on the research priority setting process protocol and survey tools.
3. Generate lists of national, regional and global STI experts and stakeholder groups to ensure a broad range of survey participants are reached during the priority setting process implementation.
4. Participate in consolidating STI research questions solicited from stakeholder surveys.
5. Ensure that the proposed criteria for scoring research questions will address the objectives of the exercise.
6. Review analysis and results of ranking and systematic listing of priority research questions (with data management/statistical support).
7. Contribute to the WHO finalization. publishing and dissemination of global STI research priorities. 

The STI Research Priority Setting TAG will meet with the WHO Secretariat throughout this process. In keeping with the requirements of the WHO Advisory Groups guidelines and the WHO Compliance, Risk Management and Ethics Office, we are posting online short biographies of the TAG members. The listed candidates have also submitted a Declaration of Interest form stating any conflict of interests. WHO has applied its internal processes to ensure that the performance of the above tasks by members of this group will be transparent and without any significant conflict of interests (academic, financial, or other) that could affect the credibility of the process. Nevertheless, WHO invites the general public to review the experts and stakeholders involved and provide feedback regarding any member deemed to have a significant conflict of interest with respect to the terms of reference for this group. Comments and feedbacks should be cordial and constructive, and sent to  [email protected].