The 8th meeting of our IAB was held for the first time since our inception at CIHR Headquarters in Ottawa. In fact, the meeting was open to all CIHR staff. A two-day busy but highly successful meeting.
Following the adoption of the agenda and approval of the minutes of the 7th meeting, INMHA staff summarized activities over the past few months including INMHA's participation at various international meetings (Society for Neurosciences, Israeli Neuroscience, Mental Health Research in Developing Countries, etc), the signature of an international collaboration program with Mexico (Institutes of Psychiatry and Neurology), workshops (NeuroEthics), etc. A summary of discussion at the Scientific Directors table followed with some focus on budgetary issues, cross-cutting initiatives, staff, etc.
Dr Kevin Keough, Chief Scientist at Health Canada, and his team then summarized some of the current activities at Health Canada with special emphasis on Mental Health and Addiction programs (suicide-a joint Health Canada-CIHR meeting starting on February 7th 2003 in Montreal, suicide, mental health in the workplace, PFT, etc). It was clear from Dr. Keough's presentation that mental health and addiction are on the radar screen at Health Canada and that we must aim to promote more collaboration between INMHA-CIHR and Health Canada. One means to foster collaboration is to meet on frequent basis and to share, and possibly integrate, yearly action plans. Ms. Astrid Eberhart, Assistant Director, Partnership, of INMHA will follow-up with Health Canada.
Senator Yves Morin presented next interests of the Senate on mental health related issues. He summarized recent proposals for a special Senate Committee and series of hearing on mental health and illnesses. This proposal generated a lot of interest and many IAB members volunteered to appear as witnesses in front of this important committee. The SD and the Head of the Focus group on Government Affairs have been and will continue to be in regular contact with Senator Morin and his team in that dossier. Timeline: Hearings between Spring and Fall 2003. Phil Upshall then briefly reported on recent activities of the focus group on government affairs and networking highlighting the need for INMHA to be more visible on Parliament Hill and to coordinate activities with the voluntary sector. Phil will work with the SD and the Head of Communication and Government Relations on that dossier, in partnership with CIHR Headquarters.
During lunchtime, Dr Antoine Hakim, President of the NCE Canadian Stroke Network reviewed for the IAB some of the recent developments at CSN and opportunities for partnership with INMHA. Interests particularly focused around the future RFA on Regenerative Medicine, Training Grants, and Knowledge Translation. Partnership is likely to develop over the coming few months.
The Head of the Focus group on budget, Dr. Peter Scholefield, then reviewed budgetary issues and summarized a recent meeting of that group. Budget is on track for FY 2002-2003 and with the projected increase for FY 03-04, INMHA should be able to support a reasonable number of NET (3-4) and Block Training Grant (3-4) awards in the competition that are currently underway. The IAB reaffirmed its interest in also supporting additional grants and salary awards in the open competition, especially since cut-off are likely to be very high for the Fall 2002 Competition. Additionally, this Focus group will work on providing the IAB with an outline of yearly commitments over the next few year (for discussion at the next IAB).
Mr. Michael Obrecht , Head of CIHR Performance and Evaluation reviewed next recent developments at CIHR in relation to Performance Measurement and Evaluation, role of Institutes, etc. He proposed the creation of an institute Focus Group on this important topic. Dr. Richard Briere, Assistant Director, will be responsible for this Focus Group.
We then had updates on Focus groups dealing with Ethics, and Industry and Biotechs. Dr. Gordon DuVal summarized the main recommendations of the workshop on Neuroethics held in November. The objective is to develop and release an RFA on Neuroethics in June 2003. A draft should be available at the next IAB meeting. Gordon also summarized discussion held at the CIHR-Cross-Institute Ethic Designates Committee. A proposal should be forthcoming from that group for a CIHR wide commitment to fund more research on ethics in Canada. Dr. Lisa McKerracher then reported on a recent conference call of the Industry and Biotech group which also include representatives from Lilly USA (C.H. Fibiger), Pfizer Canada (P. Roy) and AstraZeneca Canada (A. Gendron). Proposals focused on the training of clinicians-scientists with exchange programs with the Industry. The training of physiologists and behavioral neuroscientists was also deemed to be critical. Programs to foster knowledge about the pharmaceutical and biotech industry should also be developed. The first day ended up with an open gathering with all interested CIHR headquarter staff.
The 2nd day begun with a presentation from Dr Gabrielle Adams, Director General of the Institute for Biological Sciences , National Research Council. An eye-opener for many members of the IAB as to potential opportunities for collaboration with NRC-based scientists for our community. It was suggested to develop frequent interactions between NRC and INMHA. Already, NRC should be an active partner on the Regenerative Medicine RFA and Dr Adams and colleagues will participate at upcoming workshops related to this topic and organized by INMHA.
An update on INMHA's strategic initiatives was then presented by the SD. RFAs are planned on Regenerative Medicine, and Tobacco Use and Nicotine Addiction for the June 1st deadline. Many partnerships (NRC, NSERC, CTCRI, NCI, Genome Canada, industries, NGOs-VHOs) are under discussion with various federal agencies, NGOs, etc. Draft RFAs should be available by the time of the next IAB. Regarding the other two major initiatives (First Episodes & Co-morbidity) included in INMHA' strategic plan, it is likely that an RFA could be launched in December 2003 on First Episodes while it will not be before late 2004 for Co-morbidity to give us enough time to properly develop this important but difficult research topic.
The SD then presented a "report card" summarizing our accomplishments over the past two years as compared to objectives and goals highlighted in our Strategic Plan. Following an animated discussion, it was concluded that such a document was useful to keep us on track and to set targets for the coming two years. Discussion also focused on the next phase of strategic initiatives that should be considered including suicide, addiction, etc. In fact, workshops will be held on most of these topics over the coming year to help INMHA in identifying target areas for INMHA strategic initiatives over the coming year.
Mr. Justin Kingsley, Head of Communication and Government Relations presented next his communication plan for INMHA. It focuses on making optimal uses of our successes and of Canadian scientists who are recognized as stars in their fields. A very close collaboration with our NGO-VHO sector is also emphasized as recommended at our Annual Meeting. Strong relationship with them media will also be nurtured, an example being a front page lead article on Neuroethics to appear on February 8. The SD then summarized recent international activities of the Institute and focus on future partnerships with Latin America.
The last major item of the agenda was a joint gathering with various national professional organizations including the Canadian Psychological Association (Dr John Service, Executive Director), Canadian Psychiatric Association (Dr Blake Woodside, President and colleague), Canadian Medical Association (M. William Tholl, Secretary General and colleague) and Canadian Council on Substance Abuse (Michel Perron, CEO and colleagues). Each organization summarized its mandate and objectives and highlighted potential opportunities for partnership with INMHA. Certainly a most exciting series of presentations with multiple occasions for better communications, partnerships, etc. It was agreed that we should exchange information as to upcoming funding opportunities, events, statistics on research activities, etc. Heads of Communications will be in charge of the follow-ups and we should aim to meet at least on a yearly basis.
The meeting ended up after discussion of location of next meetings (Montreal, joint with Aboriginal People Health, June 2003) and our 2nd annual meeting (Toronto, November 2003).
