Our Governance
The MI-CRE governance model has been designed to facilitate intellectual exchange, enhance collaboration and academic outputs, and align research priorities to major national and international medicines policy issues. MI-CRE鈥檚 organisational hub is based at the School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney under the leadership of Professor Sallie Pearson, MI-CRE Director. The MI-CRE Program and Communications Manager, Dr Natasha Hirschhorn-Edwards is responsible for day-to-day coordination of MI-CRE activities; organisation of regular (video) conferences and other communication strategies; the Annual Research Symposium and Policy Forum, educational meetings; and financial and annual reports. MI-CRE has a Steering Committee (composed of all CIs and AIs) to oversee and prioritise research initiatives. The Operations Team convenes bimonthly to discuss operational issues, coordinate research activities through the Portfolios, evaluate MI-CRE's activities, and manage financial allocations.
A key part of our knowledge translation framework and our governance is that our research is informed by the needs of our end-users. To achieve this, we are supported by three reference groups - Policy and Translation, Consumer, and our International Scientific Reference Group. These groups provide input into MI-CRE's priorities, contribute to project designs through our Incubator Program, participate in our capacity building and training program and assist with translation and dissemination of our research output.
Consumer Reference Group
The MI-CRE Consumer Reference Group provides strategic advice to the Steering Committee on how to effectively and authentically engage with consumers and the community in a sustainable way to ensure that all aspects of MI-CRE鈥檚 work remains relevant to those most impacted by medicines use and policy. As well as providing advice, the group assists in facilitating education and training to MI-CRE researchers on consumer involvement as well as mentoring new consumer representatives to build capacity within this important resource. They are also an important part of our Policy and Translation Reference Group, contributing to the Project Incubator Scheme as well as identifying research priorities. Members of the Consumer Reference Group are highly respected and experienced consumer representatives including Ms Anne McKenzie AM, Mr John Stubbs, Ms Ainslie Cahill AM, Mr Steven Marsh and Ms Jan Donovan.
"By inviting consumers to engage from the project inception and throughout its lifecycle, MI-CRE ensures that our voices are not just heard, but are instrumental in shaping research that truly benefits the community."
Steven Marsh, Consumer Representative
Our Portfolios
To support the goals of MI-CRE and build capacity across the network, we have developed three Portfolios of expertise that integrate at both the program and project levels:
- Capacity Building and Training
- Methods and Data
- Knowledge Translation
The Portfolios respond to the needs of research projects (eg consult with end-users, train ECRs in advanced statistical methods for analysis etc) as well as generate and undertake projects. This bi-directional interplay between the Portfolios and projects in creating 'medicines intelligence' is illustrated in the figure here.
Anyone in the MI-CRE network can join one or more of the Portfolios to participate in their regular activities. Each Portfolio is lead by two ECRs with the opportunity for the roles to be turned over every 12-18 months to offer the experience to others, thereby building leadership capacity amongst the ECRs. Senior Investigators from across the MI-CRE nodes support the Portfolios as 'Key Advisors'.
Some of the programs and activities led by the Portfolios include:
- Mentoring Program
- Monthly 'Events Hour'
- Project Incubator Scheme
- Methods Practicum
- Consumer Involvement Shared Learning Group
More information about the activities of the Portfolios, including examples of their impact can be found by clicking on the tiles below. 聽
