FEB/MAR 2006
Volume 12 - No. 1
Research Activities at a Featured Program
SRNT Newsletter
February/March 2006, Volume 12, Number 1
Recommendations of the Ad Hoc Committee on
Developing Countries Research Needs
The Ad Hoc Committee on Developing Countries Research Needs is comprised of members from many developing countries:
- Wasim Maziak (Maziak@net.sy) of the Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies in Aleppo, Syria
- Samer Jabbour of the American University of Beirut
- Heather Wipfli of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Institute for Global Tobacco Control, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Mira Aghi from New Delhi, India
- Abu Saleh Abdullah of the Boston University School of Public Health, USA
- Naowarut Charoenca of Mahidol University, Rajthewee, Thailand
- Mostafa K. Mohamed of the Egyptian Smoking Prevention and Research Institute
- Neo Morojele, Deputy Director of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Unit, Medical Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa
- Mohamad Haniki Nik Mohamed of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains, Malaysia
- Ruben Israel, Globalink Coordinator, Geneva, Switzerland
With the goal of creating greater visibility and involvement from developing countries' researchers, thereby making SRNT a genuine global organization, the Committee has developed the following recommendations for the SRNT Board to consider:
- Increase access of researchers from developing countries to SRNT annual conferences through waiving of registration charges and minimizing membership fees.
- Organize research training or fund raising workshops for developing countries' researchers, preferably at SRNT conferences, with financial support for researchers to attend them.
- Through a new section of the SRNT website and a specially constructed listserv, identify expert researchers willing to help researchers in developing countries. Identify or provide funding opportunities for developing countries and link this with RAM (Research Assistance Matching).
- Conduct repeated assessments of developing countries' researchers' needs (e.g. in collaboration with Global Tobacco Research Network, or GTRN), preferably in conjunction with major scientific meetings and implement the results in the future planning of SRNT work.
- Combine the general and European SRNT conferences into one annual conference held in different countries to increase access of developing countries' researchers to this conference (going to the US is difficult for most developing countries' researchers).
The SRNT Executive Committee is exploring ways to implement these recommendations, and the Ad Hoc Committee welcomes input from SRNT Members as they move forward with the Board to achieve these objectives.