Janette Benaddi MICR CSci
Keywords
Chartered Scientist, Forum events, Review of 2009, Training courses
As 2009 draws to a close, many of us will no doubt find ourselves looking back over the past 12 months and assessing how our lives and work have evolved. Some of us are perhaps a little confused, battered and bruised with the instability that has been around us both personally and at work. That said, for some of us it might have been the best year yet; I do hope that the latter is the case for many of you.
This month, I thought it would be good to look back at what ICR has done over the past 12 months and talk about some of the highlights of this year. Although it has been a difficult year for ICR, with the recession impacting some areas of our organisation, there have been many highlights and I feel as we go into a new year it is these successes that we should be celebrating.
We became able to award Chartered Scientist designation in the clinical research field back in 2007, and this has continued to be a very successful programme, fast gaining acknowledgment within the sector. It normally takes several years for a certification programme to really make an impact so it is quite staggering to note that we already have 300 Chartered Scientists amongst our membership. This qualification is widely recognized by scientists of all disciplines as a mark of professionalism and expertise. If you are not yet one of our Chartered Scientists, please do consider becoming one. If you’re not sure about the process have a look at our website (www.icr-global.org/membership/chartered-scientist) or let us know at the office and we will guide you through the process.
ICR is and always will be a membership organisation, providing you with the support you need in whichever aspect of clinical research or related field you are in. Our main focus will always be membership services and next year will be a key year for enhancing this. As many of you know, we do offer training services and while the income from these activities helps to support other membership services, it also means we are well placed to help you with your own training and development. The training and development area of ICR has done extremely well this year, we have held an average eight public courses each month and also delivered in-house courses to over 40 different companies and organizations. The income generated from these courses is already being ploughed back into our membership services.
The Special Interest Groups and Fora have also seen another successful year of networking amongst our members. Attendance at the events has been maintained, despite the difficulties in the economy impacting members’ travel and time allotment for external events. Many of you are still managing to get to these and keep the groups going through your voluntary efforts and motivation, which is most inspirational. This year we also had our largest attendance ever at a forum event, when 160 of you came to our GCP and Ethics forum earlier this year. Always a popular event, it continues to attract more and more of you.
Our membership numbers, again despite the recession, have been maintained which is good news because it means that we are getting closer to meeting your needs.
None of this could have been accomplished without the continual support we have from our volunteers, yourselves as our members and the team back at the office. The Board of Directors have specifically asked me to publicly thank every one of you in my Chair’s message this month. Despite this year coming close to being an “annus horribilis”, you have continued to support your organization in every way you can. We are extremely grateful for this and will do our best to ensure that we continue to deliver to your needs, not just in 2010 but for many years beyond that.
Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thank you.
Janette Benaddi MICR CSci (janette@medvance.co.uk) is Chief Executive Officer of Medvance Ltd and Chair of The Institute of Clinical Research.
