As a non-profit organization rooted in a global movement of university students, UAEM aims to: (1) promote access to medicines and medical innovations where barriers exist primarily by changing norms and practices around academic patenting and licensing, supported by our own independent research, (2) ensure that university medical research meets the needs of people worldwide and actively supports the creation of new needs-based approaches to R&D and (3) empower students to respond to the biomedical access and innovation crisis by advocating for the most promising global biomedical R&D system that works for all.