Building on the results of last year’s LifeTrain Workshop, i.e. the four sets of Agreed Principles for continuing professional development (CPD), around 45 delegates, old and new friends, joined the 2013 LifeTrain Workshop to report about their endeavours towards the implementation of the Principles. The 3rd  Workshop was hosted by Janssen in Brussels on  28-29 November 2013.

1. After a series of presentation of best practices and individual cases, the delegates were to answer and discuss the following questions:

-          What experience have you had so far?

-          What have the success been?

-          What have your greatest challenges been?

-          What should our next steps towards implementation be?

We heard success stories, but were also made aware of challenges and hurdles - in some cases apparently perceived insurmountable. (see below Break-out session slides (Day 2)).

2. Defined competency profiles, transparent competency portfolios and assessable competence were agreed to be the key to success. The future work of LifeTrain will focus particularly on these aspects.

3. How can LifeTrain support? – This question raised lively discussions. Numerous valuable feedback and suggestions were expressed and will guide the LifeTrain initiative in its future work.

We obtained a clear request to a) apply the IMI course quality criteria with common sense; b) work hard on the further enhancement of the on-course® resource; and c) improve communication.

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The following workshop documents are available:

- Agenda

- Information for participants

 

Day 1:

- LifeTrain workshop 2013 the journey

- Competency as currency

- Vitae RDF Alison Mitchell

- Cogent

- IAoCR

- PharmaTrain competency profile

- Employers AZ case study

- Professional Body case study TOPRA

- Course Provider FORUM Institute for Management

- Individual Scientist

 

Day 2:

Break-out  session:

Implementing The LifeTrain framework in your organisation experiences, successes, challenges, next steps

Break-out group 1: Break-out group 2: Break-out group 3: Break-out group 4:
Employers Professional Bodies Course Providers ESFRIBMS Initiatives

- Sustainability of the LifeTrain process

IMI Education and Training, under the lead of EMTRAIN, organised the second LifeTrain Workshop entitled "Shaping a common framework for CPD in medicines research & development". The workshop was hosted by UCB in Brussels on 20-21 November 2012.

LifeTrain represents an idea whose time has come. More than 50 stakeholder representatives of European professional/scientific bodies, employers, course providers and relevant other bodies and organisations attended the workshop. The workshop was designed to share the vision, revise the stakeholder charters and plan for implementation. EMTRAIN could not achieve this alone but the combined efforts of all involved, has created an unstoppable force – a snow ball effect which is gathering momentum.
 

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The following workshop documents are available:
- Agenda
- List of participants
- List of abbreviations
- LifeTrain framework document (version 17 January 2013)
- LifeTrain concept paper


Day 1:
- Introduction to UCB
- LifeTrain Workshop II imagining
- Education and Training from the IMI perspective
- The journey so far
- IMI common quality standards for CPD
- Update on on-course®
- Introduction to the break-out sessions
- How does the individual fit in?
 

Break-out group 1:
Professional/scientific bodies
     
Break-out group 2:
Employers
                                   
Break-out group 3:
Course providers
Pharmine
Vitae
Eurotox
Outcomes
MEB
Royal Society of Chemistry
European Biotechnology Network
Outcomes
Kings College
Forum Institute for Management
Hibernia College Dublin
Outcomes


Day 2:
- Final Reveiw of draft charters (version 17 January 2013)
- ESFRI-BMS as use case
- Keynote speech: New education and training technologies



 

 

 

The first LifeTrain workshop was run by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) Education and Training projects on 4-5 October 2011

1

European Common Framework for Continuing Professional Development
in the Biomedical Sciences  

Developed by LifeTrain

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Developed by EMTRAIN in collaboration with the IMI Education and Training projects LifeTrain addresses how Continuing Professional Development (CPD) can be better coordinated to support biomedical research in Europe and achieve the goals of IMI. The IMI LifeTrain initiative brought together many excellent, but disparate, activities into a process towards a coherent common framework for CPD in Europe.

The essential components of LifeTrain are:

  1. The recognition of individual competence portfolios
  2. Stakeholder engagement
  3. Access to high quality professional training modules
  4. Workshops to reach consensus
  5. Publication of a position paper – A European common framework for CPD

LifeTrain is fully in line with the clear statement of Europe’s intent to regain leadership in biomedical research and to drive global excellence to serve the aim of providing required innovative health care solutions more effectively.

The European common framework for CPD consists of four charters ("agreed principles") – one for the professional/scientific bodies, one for the course providers, one for the employers, and one for the individual professional, and a series of key messages. This provides a holistic, harmonised approach to CPD. It recognises the importance of diversity to meet individual stakeholders’ needs without being prescriptive in how to develop and maintain professional competence in the biomedical sciences and the disciplines involved in or supporting medicines discovery, development, processing and/or usage.

Recently, the article "LifeTrain: towards a European framework for continuing professional development in biomedical sciences" was published in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.

For more information take a look at