The 2008 Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Academic Programs in Clinical Research was held on Wednesday, June 25th, at 5:15 pm  at the Boston Convention and Exposition Center in Boston, MA, in conjunction with the 44th Annual DIA Meeting.  The minutes of that meeting follow.

Consortium of Academic Programs in Clinical ResearchAnnual Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
DIA Meeting, Boston, MA 

1.  President Jim Parmentier called the meeting to order, and invited the attendees to introduce themselves.  A list of attendees is attached. 

2.   Secretary/Treasurer Stephen Sonstein reported that our Treasury held about $5000, and that we had no outstanding debts.  

3.  Because there were several new attendees at the meeting Stephen offered a brief history of the Consortium.  It developed originally in 2003-04 from informal discussions at DIA annual meetings among clinical research educators from Duke, Eastern Michigan Unive rsity, George Washington University, UCLA, Campbell University and the University of New South Wales. The Consortium was begun with financial assistance from the DIA Foundation.  It is now incorporated in MI as a non-profit organization.  Its potential constituency is the approximately 25-30 US-based academic clinical research programs that primarily educate non-physicians, the 6-8 similar programs that are based elsewhere in the world.  The old K30 programs, particularly those that now receive funding within the new NIH-supported CTSA structure to educate physicians in the fundamentals of clinical/translational research, are also potential members.   The current goals of the Consortium are as follows:

    a.   To develop metrics which better define the value of the existing educational programs in clinical research.

   b.   To better articulate what value these programs provide to our constituencies, including the academic community and the pharmaceutical and regulatory industries. 

   c.  To codify the knowledge base of the profession and identify its content at the various academic levels of instruction (eg, baccalaureate, post-baccalaureate, Masters and Doctorate)

  d.   To move toward establishment of an accrediting organization for academic programs in clinical research.  

4.   The Consortium website, www.coapcr.org, continues to function under the guidance of the Ripple Group, and serves to make our efforts more visible to the clinical research community as well as to provide a medium of information exchange between our members and other constituencies.  The Consortium leadership urges its supporters to review the website and suggest any changes or additions which are appropriate. 

5.   Stephen introduced Melissa Ockert, who is the new President of the Consortium. 

6.   Lively discussion began on several issues common to most academic programs

  §         The need for a Discussion Board on the website to exchange ideas. 

  §         The requirement placed by pharmaceutical companies and CROs of 1-2 years of experience for entry level positions and how it affects our graduates.

  §         The topics at this year’s SIAC meeting (Special Interest Group for Professional Education and Development), which was held earlier in the day. 

  §    There is a possibility that the Consortium might be able to a use permit for certain previously-developed introductory distance-learning courses in clinical investigation and make these courses available to students or faculty at its member institutons for very little expense.  The purpose of such use would be to suggest modifications or upgrades to the existing courses, as well as benefit from their common content.  If several schools participated in the use of the same curriculum, and each suggested modifications and improvements, it was felt that over several semesters the courses might reflect what was understood to be common core content, and thus provide a definition of that content for presentation to industry or other interested parties.  Discussion continued on the development and definition of the knowledge base for the administration of clinical research.  

  §         Dan Benau made a plea for educationally relevant abstracts to be submitted to the Training Track for next year’s annual meeting.   The abstract deadline is in early September, 2008.  

  §         There continues to be a need to collect for data which demonstrates the productivity of our academic programs, and to track the success of graduates of existing educational training programs.  The Educational Programs Committee will try to address this topic during the coming year.

  §         How can we promote minority representation in clinical research? 

7.   Melissa thanked everyone for attending.  Jim collected the names and addresses of all attendees, and promised to prepare and distribute meeting minutes to each of them and to the website in a timely fashion.  Melissa then adjourned the session.