Europe's largest clinical research event opened with over 800 delegates at Birmingham's International Convention Centre for the Institute of Clinical Research's (ICR) spring conference and exhibition
The conference, entitled 'Communication in clinical research - challenges in a complex world' began with an opening address by the ICR's chair, Susan Ollier, and a keynote presentation by Daily Telegraph Young Science Writer Award winner and senior press officer at the Science Media Centre, Claire Bithell.
Ollier announced the chair of the new European advisory board as Annelies Legters, a clinical operations manager at Lundbeck in the Netherlands and Denmark, and confirmed the date and venue of the 2008 ICR European conference and exhibition.
"The ICR is very much expanding its European presence and refining its membership services for that region," said Ollier.
"We formed the European advisory board last year to widen our offering on the continent and now I am delighted to announce that the board has already arranged the next European conference to be in Budapest on 29 and 30 September.
"The title of the event will be 'Winning strategies for Europe in a global market'.
In addition, Ollier looked back over a positive 12 months which have seen the ICR gain Investors in People and Science Council status.
She also announced three new ICR honorary fellows - Joan Perou, GCP consultant and trainer and an ICR board member; Suresh Gupta, director general and dean of ICR India, and Dennis Joseph, regional operations manager for Pfizer.
Claire Bithell's keynote presentation focused on Secrets Behind Science in the Media and discussed the most effective ways of communicating with the media and pitfalls many clinical research companies fall foul of.
This subject is echoed across the timetable of 25 expert speakers all discussing global issues in ethics, regulations and clinical operations.
Tonight the delegates will get together for the gala dinner and then the ICR Spring Conference and Exhibition will close tomorrow with a presentation by former Tomorrow's World TV presenter and award-winning journalist Judith Hann.
