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CFS/ME Research Collaborative Conference 28-29 Sept 2016

charles shepherd

Senior Member
Messages
2,239
In Newcastle again? I thought it was going to be somewhere down south?

Any chance we'll see Tuller give the Anne Faulkner memorial lecture?

The CMRC was looking at Southampton and Bristol - but could not find a suitable location at a reasonable price on the days we wanted. So we are holding the conference again in Newcastle - which is the Centre of Excellence as far as ME/CFS biomedical and clinical research (Julia Newton et al) is concerned here in the UK…

Speakers are still being discussed and recruited
 

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
UK CMRC said:
We are pleased to announce that we will be awarding poster prizes for early stage career researchers at our conference 28-29thSept 2016 thanks to sponsorship for the prizes from the Medical Research Council. There will be a top prize of £3,000 to enable the winners to present their research at international conference/s. The prize can be used for travel and conference fees. Abstracts are invited until 30 June so please ensure you submit in time; we will be inviting oral presentations following peer review of the abstracts.

Our Conference Programme is now available via link HERE;we will continue to update it with presentation titles and oral presentations as the information comes through. If you haven’t already booked your place, you can do so via this link HERE.

Lastly, as discussed at the AGM in April, there have been some further revisions to the Charter. If you have any questions or amendments to the attached, please can you let me know. All comments need to be received by 5 pm on 11 July 2016 to enable the Board to consider further amendments/approval at its next meeting on 13 July 2016.
 

Attachments

  • cmrc-conference-2016-programme.pdf
    245.3 KB · Views: 9
  • Board ToR final draft for consult 21.6.16.pdf
    314.3 KB · Views: 9
  • CMRC Charter Revised final draft for consult 21.6.16.pdf
    219.2 KB · Views: 6

Sasha

Fine, thank you
Messages
17,863
Location
UK
I can no longer see a reference to "harassment", which was previously in the charter, which is a big step forward. I think this is the new version of that section:

CMRC charter said:
3.2 Membership Requirements

Good scientific debate promotes and drives the highest quality of basic and applied evidencedbased and peer-reviewed research in to M.E./CFS and is actively encouraged by the CMRC.

This includes respectful debate and objective, constructive criticism in order to encourage critical thinking.

Channels for ‘good’ scientific debate include writing letters to journals, asking questions, using established legal channels

Membership of the CMRC does not prevent any member charity or organisation from pursuing its own aims and objectives as laid out in its founding documents.

It's still a weird thing to have in a charter and it reads in a rather patronising way, IMO, but it could be interpreted as being equally directed at the authors of the PACE trial, who don't seem to know what good scientific debate consists of and perhaps were felt to need it spelled out to them.

Edit: It's doubly weird because these aren't being presented as membership requirements - and there's therefore no apparent reason why this stuff is in this document at all.

It's a welcome bit of progress but it does make one wonder about the process that results in this sort of thing.
 
Last edited:
Messages
13,774
Very difficult to consider the way those smearing PACE critics have behaved as 'respectful debate'.

Channels for ‘good’ scientific debate include writing letters to journals, asking questions, using established legal channels

If this is seen as explicitly saying that FOI requests are an example of 'good' scientific debate, that would be a positive thing.

Just from Sasha's summary, it sounds like positive changes.
 

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
This event is approaching and I can't help to notice Esther Crawley scheduled to speak about pediatric ME on the
Thursday afternoon.

If there anybody planning to attend?