Eighth EDCTP Forum starts today, 6 November 2016

06 November 2016

From 6 to 9 November 2016, the Eighth Forum of the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership will take place in Lusaka, Zambia. The biennial Forum is one of the biggest conferences on infectious diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. The conference is organised in partnership with the Ministry of Health of Zambia. His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zambia, Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu, will officially open the Forum.

African-European co-ownership

The Forum provides a platform to discuss latest research findings, and share new ideas and best practices. The broad theme of the Forum is how to better use research results for policies that aim to defeat poverty-related infectious diseases in Africa. EDCTP is a partnership between 14 African and 14 European countries, supported by the European Union under its Research and Innovation programme, Horizon 2020. A high-level meeting to encourage African countries to fully participate in the programme is part of the programme.

Awards

During the conference, three awards will be given to African researchers: awards for Scientific Leadership, an Outstanding Female Scientist, and an Outstanding Research Team. The awards aim to promote African-European scientific research collaboration.

The Dr Pascoal Mocumbi Prize rewards an individual in recognition of his or her outstanding achievements in advancing health research and capacity development in Africa with significant impact on the wellbeing of African populations.

Watch it live

Watch the presentations and discussions of the Forum plenary sessions as they happen. The live streaming of the Eighth EDCTP Forum will be available on the EDCTP YouTube channel (Lusaka, CET +1).

Daily updates

The Forum’s daily updates are a summary of the main activities, presentations and discussions for each day of the Forum. These updates will be available on the Eighth EDCTP Forum website and sent to subscribers.

Programme

The Forum programme will comprise a wide range of topics of clinical research covering poverty-related infectious diseases within the scope of EDCTP. This includes research capacity development, research ethics review and regulatory developments.  The official Forum theme is: ‘Defeating poverty-related and neglected infectious diseases in Africa: harnessing research for evidence-informed policies.’

The conference will feature main speakers who are leaders in their area of research, as well as specialised sessions and poster presentations. Participants will also be able to attend workshops. A number of the presenters will be early career researchers from sub-Saharan Africa who will participate through our scholarship programme. Research groups and other organisations contributed scientific symposia. The complete programme is available on the Forum website. The Forum is accompanied by several satellite meetings.