Euroscience Open Forum 2012

The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) was launched in 2008 as a large-scale public-private partnership between the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) to boost the development of new medicines across Europe. The IMI education and training pillar has been developed to ensure that Europe’s biomedical education landscape is enhanced to allow for innovation and Europe’s global leadership in future medicines research. The European Medicines Research Training Network (EMTRAIN) is tasked with establishing a pan-European platform for education and training that covers the whole life-cycle of medicines development. A large part of this work has been the development of a free post-graduate biomedical course catalogue called on-course®. Harmonizing European training programmes by expanding the network in all European member states and associated countries is aimed for minimal bureaucracy to allow maximum flexibility and mobility between countries. Emerging challenge occurred in the development of a strategic plan to ensure sustainability of education and training projects from IMI and its positioning in future funded frameworks offered by Horizon 2020.

Session Topics:

1. IMI: opportunities and challenges (Prof. Michel Goldman),
2. Balancing act between European and nationally-funded projects with regard to training and Horizon 2020 (Dr. Dimitri Corpakis),
3. IMI Education and Training expansion plan (Frederik Wittock),
4. On-course: expected impact on Europe's landscape of training in medicines development (Dr. Tony Payton).