Webinar Announcing the Establishment of the Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network (DSEN) Collaborating Centres

The Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network (DSEN) has been established to increase the evidence on the post-market safety and effectiveness of drugs available to regulators, policy-makers, health care providers and patients; and, to increase capacity within Canada to undertake high-quality research in this area. It is composed of 3 key components: the Coordinating Centre, to facilitate Network operations, the Steering Committee that will set priorities and provide strategic directions and the Collaborating Centres.

DSEN will be announcing the launch of the funding process supporting the establishment of the DSEN Collaborating Centres (CCs). CCs will be formed of researchers and team members from across jurisdictions, universities and organizations. They will be interprovincial in geographic scope, possess the research capacity to respond in a timely manner to the drug safety and effectiveness questions of decision makers and must demonstrate a commitment to contribute to a greater national coordination of research efforts. Several CCs will be established in principal thematic areas of research methodologies, each supporting distinctive competencies within the national DSEN initiative. These would include a unique CC for Retrospective Observational Studies along with consideration of CCs for Prospective Surveillance and Pharmacoepidemiologic Studies; and RCTs/Systematic Reviews/Indirect Comparisons.

Based on an assessment of the objectives to be reached in and the options for establishing the necessary research capacity into a network, DSEN proposes to use two distinct but related funding opportunities, launched in succession over the next year in order to fund CCs in the thematic methodological areas.

The first funding opportunity will support the creation of a single inclusive CC for Retrospective Observational Studies (CCROS) of national scope. DSEN will provide up to $2,500,000 annually for 5 years to this CC for startup research operating, training, personnel, and networking costs. The CCROS requires that provincial data sources be respected within jurisdictional privacy requirements. Provincially-based researchers and data custodians would come together to allow for provincial level data to be used in nationally relevant queries of linked administrative data. DSEN is seeking a means for queries from a nationally prioritized research agenda to be applied to broad Canadian administrative data and to build research capacity Canada-wide.

Since this CC will rely upon provincial administrative data, CIHR is interested to promote collaboration amongst all interested and relevantly qualified researchers, to coordinate Canada's observational research potential. Therefore CIHR will entertain a single comprehensive and all inclusive application meeting the objectives of the CCROS. A separate funding opportunity will be launched in Fall 2010 to establish CCs in the other thematic areas of methodologies.

Webinar Invitation:

Staff of the DSEN Coordinating Office will focus on the funding opportunity for the establishment of the CCROS (including the details on the scope, funds, eligibility criteria, timeline, application process… allowing ample time for questions and answers)

Webconference:

When: Two sessions of this webinar are offered:

• Monday, June 21, 2010 13:00-16:00 Eastern Time
  and
• Tuesday, June 22, 2010 13:00-16:00 Eastern Time

Please respond by e-mail if you are planning to attend to this information session. Further details about how to access the session as well as supporting documentation will be provided once attendance is confirmed.

If you have any question please contact us by e-mail at DSEN-RIEM@cihr-irsc.gc.ca

Regards,

Robert G Peterson
MD, PhD, MPH
Executive Director
Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network
Canadian Institutes of Health Research