This article is sourced from The Lancet MicrobeNov 18–24, 2025, marks the 10th edition of World AMR Awareness Week, an annual campaign led by WHO with the goal to increase awareness of global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and to encourage best practices. Much has happened over this past decade—a pandemic, a seminal paper directly attributing over 1 million deaths each year to bacterial AMR, and a shift to One Health thinking—but the next decade will be pivotal in translating awareness into sustained action, innovative solutions, and global leadership to truly curb the threat of AMR.Despite increasing global awareness, progress in combating AMR has been slow. Two WHO reports, published on Oct 2, describe how the pipelines of antibacterial agents and bacterial diagnostics remain insufficient to meet urgent global needs. Both reports call for innovation to be prioritised to produce new tools against AMR, with the WHO antibacterial pipeline report calling for the community to “adopt a culture of continuous innovation to ensure a sustainable pipeline of innovative therapies”.What does innovation in AMR look like? Promising developments such as probiotic cleaners that outcompete pathogenic bacteria, bacteriophages tailored to target resistant strains, lab-on-chip systems enabling rapid diagnostics, artificial intelligence algorithms that detect new antimicrobial targets, and bacterial vaccine programmes have all emerged. However, innovation does not solely stem from technological invention; it is also about reimagining and refining the way systems operate, in a manner that is context-adapted, which can involve existing tools. In a Comment in this issue of The Lancet Microbe, Ava Alkon, Jane Cunningham, and colleagues express concerns about the prevailing push to “innovate” our way out of the AMR crisis. They emphasise the need to invest in the fundamentals of AMR control, particularly in strengthening microbiological capacity and infection prevention in low-income and middle-income countries, and argue that combating AMR involves ensuring a solid foundation upon which innovative solutions can be applied.To build such capacity there needs to be strong leadership to guide smart funding decisions. The latest Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) report is based on data reported from 104 countries, a four-fold increase from the 25 countries that contributed to the 
first GLASS report in 2016, suggesting that countries are engaging with the advocacy of the past decade. But, nearly half of those contributing countries lack the systems to generate reliable longitudinal data. Building these systems takes commitment and funding. In the press conference launching the GLASS report, a representative from South Africa stated that the country’s surveillance efforts have already been hampered by the recent dismantlement of the UK Fleming Fund, which Talha Burki covers in this month’s News section. The closure of the Fleming Fund, without any clear replacement, severely hampers the global response to AMR and The Lancet Microbe echoes the call by the Microbiology Society and British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy for the UK Government to re-evaluate this decision and be transparent on the long-term strategy for AMR control.Unfortunately, transparency is not currently associated with the UK’s AMR policies. An audit of the UK National Action Plan against AMR, published in June, 2025, gave a damning account of the “very little progress” that has been made domestically, with all clinical targets missed from the 2019–24 plan, and criticised the “insufficient transparency” by the Government. With this inconsistent political messaging and abrupt end to funding from a major player it is unlikely that fostering the “culture of continuous innovation” that WHO is advocating for will become a reality.Looking ahead to the next 10 years, it is essential that smart decisions on AMR are made. The past decade has shown that innovation is possible but currently remains limited to inventions without the necessary political commitments to apply them where they are needed most. The financing landscape is currently challenging, so funding decisions must be directed towards getting the basics right—such as investing in laboratory capacity, surveillance systems, and infection prevention measures—that will pay off in the decades to come. The UK’s inability to maintain sustained, transparent leadership on AMR undermines global efforts and highlights the urgent need for governments worldwide to prioritise long-term, accountable strategies. Only through consistent political will, transparent planning, and targeted investments can we hope to make meaningful progress and truly turn awareness into effective action against AMR.