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Minutes of Working Party Meeting Thursday 14 June 2001

PRESENT
Kenneth Calman (Chairman)
Fred Binka, Michael Elves, V I Mathan, Keith McAdam, Anne McLaren, Povl Riis, Catherine Peckham, Shahwar Sadeque, Peter Smith,
Fabio Zicker

SECRETARIAT
Sandy Thomas, Susan Bull, Tor Lezemore

APOLOGIES
Bhikhu Parekh, Nelson Sewankambo, David Parkin

CHAIRMAN’S INTRODUCTION

1 The Chairman welcomed the Working Party. It was agreed that this meeting would focus on the recommendations in the second half of the report. The summary of current and proposed guidance and regulation (HRRDC (01) 11) was very useful and might be included in the report as an annex.

2 The fact-finding meeting with Dr Imogen Evans of the Medical Research Council and Dr Richard Lane of The Wellcome Trust the previous evening had been very helpful. It has been helpful to compare the policies of the two funding agencies. It would be useful to discriminate between sponsors in the Report as research funders had varying styles and interests.

FIFTH DRAFT OF THE REPORT

3 At present the final chapter of the report was simply a list of conclusions and recommendations. Once these were agreed the Secretariat would incorporate summaries of the supporting arguments from the text of the Report.

4 Before the Report was sent for peer review it would once again be revised to remove duplication and incorporate cross-references.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

5 The Report would be sent to peer reviewers and the Working Party at the end of June and peer-review comments would be sent to the Working Party for consideration at the beginning of August. The revised draft of the Report would be signed off by the Working Party at its final meeting on 20 September. Once approved by Council, the text of the Report would be placed on the Council's website for comment. The Report would be discussed in November, during the Third Global Forum on Bioethics in Research. The Chairman of the Working Party would be present at the meeting, as would some members of the Working Party.

6 During December the comments on the Report would be collated and circulated to the Working Party for comment. If any changes to the Report were to be made, these would need to be agreed by both the Working Party and Council.

7 At the September meeting the Chairman would be unable to attend dinner on the 19th of September and the Working Party agreed that this would be an appropriate opportunity to have a private dinner to discuss issues in the Report.

Last Updated Wed, 17 August 2005