On 29 and 30 November 2018 the final SMART Open workshop – Paediatric Foresight Training Course, took place in Warsaw. The event was organised in the framework of SMART – Small Medicines Advanced Research Training, an EU funded project coordinated by the Instytut Pomnik Centrum Zdrowia Dziecka (IPCZD, the Children Hospital in Warsaw, member of the TEDDY Network) and saw the participation of different young scientists and different stakeholders also from other members of the TEDDY Network such as Gianni Benzi Pharmacological Research Foundation and Consorzio per Valutazioni Biologiche e Farmacologiche as well as Espace Ethique Mediterranéen CHU Marseille and the University College of London.
The meeting, entitled “Current status and future changes in the European paediatric biomedical research” was intended to draw conclusions from this three-years project and provide an overview of the existing paediatric initiatives around Europe to promote paediatric biomedical research and drugs development. Among these initiatives, a representative of KIDS Bari, the first Italian YPAG, presented the activities of the group, explaining the importance of patient’s advocacy and involvement of young people in facilitating the work of the investigators and speed up the progress of paediatric clinical research.
SMART project was aimed to raise IPCZD staff’s research profile and increase capacity in providing innovative paediatric research methods. Within the project, a specific training programme has been developed, including the organisation of staff exchanges, face to face courses and summer schools. This final event provided the occasion to evaluate the competences gained by the IPCZD staff and the general results of the project.
For more information on the project, visit the official SMART web site www.smart-h2020.eu/