Report from the ECMC network meeting - 24 May 2023

To kick-off the fourth quinquennium of the ECMC network, members of the network came together with representatives from industry, patients, funders and other key stakeholders at the ECMC network meeting. It was a fantastic day and was great to see so many people from the early phase clinical trials community come together with a common aim of improving access to clinical trials. It really showed the impact of bringing the ECMC network together to share learnings and ideas.

Morning plenary session

Lord O'Shaughnessy gave the keynote presentation, highlighting the issues facing the UK commercial clinical trials landscape which he has now addressed in his review. There was a lively panel debate on innovation in clinical trial delivery with panel members including Sir Martin Landray and members of the ECMC network. We also heard about a couple of trials which have and are taking place across the ECMC network.

• View the agenda for the day
• View some of the presentations from the morning session

Networking lunch

Delegates got to catch-up during the lunchbreak and this was a great opportunity for networking across sites and roles. The ECMCs had also produced posters to showcase their work

• View the posters from the ECMCs
• View the poster from the ECMC Programme Office

Afternoon parallel sessions

In the afternoon delegates got to pick between three sessions which looked at:

• Translational research: network approaches to sample collection, resource sharing and data integration
• Working together: optimising national systems to accelerate study set-up across the ECMC network
• Finding innovative ways to improve clinical research capacity

Here delegates were able to drill down into more detail on many of the issues facing them and look at network approaches to solutions. Actions from these sessions will be taken forward by the relevant ECMC groups over the coming months.

Final session

The final session of the day was on increasing representation in clinical trials. We heard from a few sites about initiatives they are leading on to address this important topic which is a critical step in tackling health inequalities and ensuring representation of who treatments will ultimately benefit. This is an area of work that is a key focus for all ECMCs and the ECMC Programme Office will be looking at how we can support this activity on a network-wide level.

• View the presentations from this session

The day had a real buzz and was a great opportunity for staff across the network to come together and it has set the scene for the next ECMC quinquennium. Keep an eye out for updates on actions from this meeting in future issues of the ECMC newsletter.