Dear readers,
We are happy to inform you that, after a productive disucssion with our panel chairpersons, the Scientific Committee and the Board finalised the rules of the EAN Scientific Panel (SP):
Tasks of the SPs
- Suggesting educational and congress activities.
- Production of guidelines.
- Production of general statements on scientific and clinical issues if needed.
- Contributing to the collection of data regarding neurological care across Europe and its harmonisation.
- Contributing to the activities of the Working Group on Rare Neurologic Diseases.
- Helping to organise research networks in Europe whenever possible.
- Producing a forum for information within the focus of the panel, incl. news, article of the month, etc.
Members of the SPs
- Every full, corresponding and resident individual member with an interest in the special field covered by the SP has the right to become a member of the SPs.
- Applicants should submit a completed application form, Register of Interest form, CV and where still required their EAN full, corresponding or resident membership application.
- If somebody is already a member in one panel, he/she does not have to re-send all application material, but only the completed application form.
- Every EAN Full Institutional Member, European National Neurological Society, can name one national representative who has special qualifications in the field, and one neurologist in training to become a member of the SPs, accompanied by their CV and Register of Interest forms.
- Membership duration is unlimited for individual panel members but members from national societies need to be re-appointed by the national society every two years. Head Office will contact national societies for nominations in January every other year (next time in January 2018).
- EFNA will nominate a patient representative in those panels that deal with diseases.
Management group of the SPs
Each Scientific Panel will have a management group (MG). This management group is the responsible partner of the Scientific Committee. The standard size of the management group will be 3-6 persons with the tasks mentioned below. If there are additional working fields, further management group members can be appointed. The MG is led by the panel co-chairs.
Criteria for members of the management group
- The members of the management group need to be well-established scientists in the field of the SP. Scientific quality and productivity are therefore a major criterion for the selection of the management group.
- They need to have the time to realise the projects requested from the EAN Board or from the panels.
- They need to have leadership qualities, which allow them to realise projects within large working groups.
- Like all leaders of the EAN the members of the management group shall complete an application form, including their CV with a list of publications, and provide a letter of intent and a completed Register of Interests form.
- They are expected to become full, corresponding or resident individual members of EAN.
Detailed tasks of the management group (and the panels)
The members of the MG share all tasks, but each member is responsible for a specific part of the activities and will involve the panel members by using e-mail and web-conferences to realise the tasks. During the EAN annual congress, one face-to-face meeting of the panel is organised. Organisational and administrative support will be provided from EAN head office in Vienna. At least the following tasks should be assigned on an individual level.
- Guidelines: Responsibility that a plan regarding the SP-topic is submitted to the SC. Furthermore he/she has to propose experts to develop these GL and to oversee the GL production.
- Scientific updates: He/she has to take care that the panel provides two news-reports in its field per year. This should cover briefly the new developments. These reports will be published in EAN pages or on the website (t.b. discussed with the editors). The SP should also produce breaking news reports for press releases if needed. The SP will recommend the best article of the month to the SC (reported on the special EAN SP webpage).
- Congress preparation: He/she organises the preparation of topic/ session suggestions for the annual congress.
- Rare disease: One member of the MG will collaborate within the rare disease working group. (further information to be distributed).
- The panel chair forwards a summary of the SP activities to the Scientific Committee (SC) before every EAN congress.
- Other educational activities: Identifying suitable and willing individuals for reviewing fellowship applications, participation in educational events outside the congress and question writing for the EBN exam as required.
Selection of the members of the management group
- The HO will contact panels and call for candidates for the MG. Applicants will have to submit all required documents (see criteria above). In addition, they will have to inform whether they want to serve as chairpersons. The HO will collect applications and organise a secret poll. In this poll all panel members will be asked to indicate their three favourite MG members.
- The SC will decide on the number (3-6) and the names of MG members following the results of this poll. The final approval is done by the EAN Board.
- The SC will propose two persons from the MG, who will serve as chairpersons of the Panel, considering the results of the poll. They will be approved by the EAN Board and appointed by the President.
- As EAN is attempting to strengthen collaboration with subspecialty Societies the agreements also may include the privilege that the subspecialty Society can propose members of the management group. These members of the management group will be considered by the Panels and the SC, and approved by the EAN Board. MG members nominated by the subspecialty societies will not be included in the above mentioned vote.
- The term of a member on the MG is limited to a maximum of 6 years (3 x 2 years). The duration of the mandate of the Chairperson and the Co-chairperson is 2 years, with the possibility of re-election once.
- The Head Office will ask the management group members, including the chairpersons, in January, every other year, if they want to stand for re-election if possible (next time: January 2018). There will be a call for new members of the management group at other times whenever there are open positions.
The rules are also available online at our website for your convenience.
Also, we invite you to read this introduction and transition document to the rules, written by our President, Professor Deuschl and Scientific Committee Chair, Professor Federico.
