The University of Oxford's Jenner Institute had a robust infrastructure and grant funding that allowed it to conduct advanced research on vaccine technologies for many years, including a vaccine for MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) coronavirus.

In response to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus outbreak in December 2019, the Institute commenced development of the COVID-19 vaccine on 11 January 2020, as soon as the genetic code of SARS-CoV-2 was released.

This rapid breakthrough stemmed in part from QR funding which provided researchers with the freedom to pivot and adapt their existing research on MERS to target the new coronavirus. The resulting OxfordAstraZeneca vaccine saved 6.3 million lives in the first year of the global vaccine rollout.