Jean Merlin von Agris

Profile

Hi, I’m Jean, a PhD student at the School of Politics and International Studies since 2024. My research contributes to the project “Re-Evaluating the Pandemic Preparedness And REsponse agenda (REPPARE)”, funded by Brownstone Institute.

In my thesis, I explore how pandemic prevention, preparedness and response (PPPR) policy often rests on narrow conceptualisations of health. I focus in particular on the lessons WHO and related global health actors have drawn from the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, I show how the emerging PPPR regime is characterised by securitisation and biomedical reductionism, focusing on fighting the spread of selected pathogens while neglecting other aspects of health, defined in WHO’s constitution as “complete physical, mental and social well-being”. With my thesis, I aim to provide ideas on how to re-align PPPR with well-being as the ultimate goal of public health policy.

My research interest in pandemic policies was first sparked in April 2020 when a friend forwarded me an email titled “Reading Corona News all the time? Do it for research!”. The email led me to volunteer as a research assistant for the CoronaNet Research Project that created a global dataset of COVID-19 response policies. When I set out to write a report on stay-at-home orders, I realised that I would need to gather additional data, which led me to start my own one-man research project a-good-reason.eu, a dataset of stay-at-home restrictions in Europe. At the time I received that fateful email, I was working in public agricultural statistics in my home country of Germany. Before that, I gained 1.5 years of experience in development consulting, writing proposals and managing projects in agriculture and rural development. For my Master’s thesis, I had the opportunity to conduct field research in rural Sumatra, Indonesia, as part of the project “Ecological and Socioeconomic Functions of Tropical Lowland Rainforest Transformation Systems” (EFForTS), collecting data from smallholder rubber and oil palm farmers.

Publications

1. Journal Articles

von Agris, J., Bell, D., Tacheva, B., & Brown, G. W. (2025). WHO’s pandemic response recommendations after COVID-19: Lessons learned or learnings lost? Manuscript in preparation for submission.

Tacheva, B., Brown, G., Bell, D., & von Agris, J. (2025). The devil’s in the detail: An appraisal of the use of innovative financing mechanisms for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Globalization and Health, 21. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-025-01103-w

Brown, G. W., von Agris, J., Bell, D., Sturmberg, J., Ridde, V., Makali, S. L., Balaluka, G. B., Bridge, G., & Paul, E. (2025). Perspective: An overemphasis on vaccines for Mpox skewes important lessons from COVID-19 and the need for public health approaches. Journal of Infection and Public Health, 18(6), 102749. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jiph.2025.102749

Bell, D., Brown, G. W., Tacheva, B., & von Agris, J. (2025). Should Eminence Outweigh Evidence? The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board’s Report on Pandemic Preparedness. Global Policy, 16(2), 410–418. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.70016

Bell, D., von Agris, J., Tacheva, B., & Brown, G. W. (2025). Natural Spillover Risk and Disease Outbreaks: Is Over-Simplification Putting Public Health at Risk? Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health, 15(1), 65. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44197-025-00412-y

Paul, E., Brown, G. W., Bell, D., von Agris, J. M., & Ridde, V. (2024). Royal Society report: What would a comprehensive evaluation suggest about non-pharmaceutical interventions during COVID-19? Critical Public Health, 34(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2024.2349894

Bell, D., Brown, G. W., von Agris, J., & Tacheva, B. (2024). Urgent pandemic messaging of WHO, World Bank, and G20 is inconsistent with their evidence base. Global Policy, 15(4), 689–707. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13390

2. Reports

Brown, G. W., von Agris, J., Bell, D. & Tacheva, B. (2024). The Cost of Pandemic Preparedness: An Examination of Costings and the Financial Requests in Support of the Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response Agenda, REPPARE Report, University of Leeds, UK: https://essl.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/234/the-cost-of-pandemic-preparedness-an-examination-of-costings-and-the-financial-requests-in-support-of-the-pandemic-prevention-preparedness-and-response-agenda

Bell, D., Brown, G. W., Tacheva, B. & von Agris, J. (2024). Rational Policy Over Panic: Re-evaluating Pandemic Risk within the Global Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response Agenda, REPPARE Report, University of Leeds, UK: https://essl.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/228/rational-policy-over-panic

3. Blog and magazine articles

As part of REPPARE:

REPPARE. (14 May 2025). The Pandemic Agreement: Symbolic Consolidation of a New Pandemic Industry. Brownstone Institute. https://brownstone.org/articles/the-pandemic-agreement-symbolic-consolidation-of-a-new-pandemic-industry/

REPPARE. (10 February 2025). Individualism: The Basis of Public Health or Its Nemesis? Brownstone Institute. https://brownstone.org/articles/individualism-the-basis-of-public-health-or-its-nemesis/

REPPARE. (26 January 2025). The State of Pandemic Preparedness, the WHO, and the US Withdrawal. Brownstone Institute. https://brownstone.org/articles/the-state-of-pandemic-preparedness-the-who-and-the-us-withdrawal/

REPPARE. (9 August 2024). Questions about New Amendments to the 2024 IHRs. Brownstone Institute. https://brownstone.org/articles/questions-about-new-amendments-to-the-2024-ihrs/

REPPARE. (22 April 2024). The WHO and Pandemic Response – Should Evidence Matter? Brownstone Institute. https://brownstone.org/articles/the-who-and-pandemic-response-should-evidence-matter/

REPPARE. (9 April 2024). Exactly What Are WHO Member States Voting for? Brownstone Institute. https://brownstone.org/articles/exactly-what-are-who-member-states-voting-for/

Brown, G. W., Bell, D., von Agris, J. & Tacheva, B. (25 January 2024). The World Economic Forum and the Deus Ex Machina of Disease-X. International Health Policies. https://www.internationalhealthpolicies.org/featured-article/the-world-economic-forum-and-the-deus-ex-machina-of-disease-x/

REPPARE. (19 January 2024). Before Preparing for Pandemics, We Need Better Evidence of Risk. Brownstone Institute. https://brownstone.org/articles/before-preparing-for-pandemics-we-need-better-evidence-of-risk/

Individually:

von Agris, J. (20 June 2023). Who unsettled our lives? A comment on 2022’s Human Development Report. PANDA. https://pandata.org/who-unsettled-our-lives/

In German: von Agris, J. (23 May 2025). Mit Allgemeinplätzen gegen neue Pandemien. Multipolar. https://multipolar-magazin.de/artikel/pandemievertrag-2025

In German: von Agris, J. (22 August 2024). Mpox: Alarmismus bezüglich „gesundheitlicher Notlage“ sollten wir vermeiden. Berliner Zeitung. https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/open-source/mpox-warum-wir-alarmismus-wir-vermeiden-sollten-li.2246684

In German: von Agris, J. (7 July 2024). Zeitenwende? Reden wir doch erst einmal über Corona statt nur über Putin und die AfD. Berliner Zeitung. https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/open-source/zeitenwende-reden-wir-erst-mal-ueber-corona-statt-nur-ueber-putin-und-die-afd-li.2229739

In German: von Agris, J. (22 June 2024). Pandemieabkommen und IGV-Reform: Kritik „nicht nur in dubiosen Telegram-Gruppen“. Berliner Zeitung. https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/open-source/who-pandemieabkommen-und-igv-reform-kritik-nicht-nur-in-dubiosen-telegramgruppen-li.2225824

In German: von Agris, J. (27 April 2024). Pandemievertrag: Übertreiben WHO, Weltbank und G20 die Pandemiegefahr? Berliner Zeitung. https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/open-source/pandemievertrag-uebertreiben-who-weltbank-und-g20-die-pandemiegefahr-li.2207474

In German: von Agris, J. (20 April 2024). Pandemievertrag: Weiß die WHO nicht, was eine Pandemie ist? Berliner Zeitung. https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/open-source/pandemievertrag-weiss-die-who-nicht-was-eine-pandemie-ist-li.2206827

4. Other

Consultant (data analysis) to the project “Increasing African Membership on the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria” commissioned by Wits Health Consortium, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa (2024).

Created a dataset on COVID-19 stay-at-home policies in Europe with additional background research. (2022). https://www.a-good-reason.eu/

Master thesis: Rubber price drop, smallholder livelihood effects, and adaptation measures in Sumatra (2017). https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/document/download/20f9e4c30de8977858708a8e644459eb.pdf/Master_Thesis_C07_2017_Jean_von_Agris.pdf

In German: Guest in the podcast “Datenaffaire”. Episode 88 – Prävention von Pandemien. https://datenaffaire.com/2025/03/21/episode-88/

Research interests

Pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, global health, wellbeing, non-pharmaceutical interventions, human development, rural development, food systems, cost-benefit analysis, evidence-based policymaking, securitisation

Qualifications

• B. Sc. Economics, University of Mannheim, Germany
• M.A. Development Economics, University of Göttingen, Germany