News & Activities

SENSITISE Multiplier Event

23 May 2025

The first SENSITISE Multiplier event took place on Tuesday in Madrid in conjunction with International Clinical Trials Day. The whole consortium participated in this day, whether it be ECRIN as the organiser or University College Cork, University of Aberdeen or Masaryk University on stage and touting the importance of training on inclusivity in trial design.

SENSITISE polled the audience and to relatively little surprise, we learnt that very few attendees have existing training on the topic, but almost all felt this training to be necessary.

To start the day Tamas Bereczky and Shaun Treweek were instrumental in setting the scene. Shaun explained that inclusivity needs to be baked into the trial design from the get-go and that a trial with good representativeness leads to better science. 

The first panel of the day led by Shaun included a patient, Josephine Tapper, a YPAG organisation representative, Pamela Dicks, and a SENSITISE's own pharmacologist, Jitka Rychlíčková, who answered questions from the room but also from attendees online, about what has been successful, or not, in the past, to increase the impact of clinical trial outreach to the representative population.

With presentations from various perspectives: patient (EUPATI); ethical board; industry; and regulator, as well as examples of inclusivity built into trials the day was full of examples of efforts underway in Europe.

To close the day, a panel led by the SENSITISE project coordinator Frances Shiely discussed the infrastructure and capacity required to facilitate inclusive trials - including the training needs. Lastly, a presentation on the aims and organisation of the IHI READI project which is also working to support training needs and more for inclusive trial design on the continent.