Due to the Covid-19 pandemic this year’s annual RADAR-CNS meeting was held virtually over three afternoons in October. 80 members of the RADAR-CNS team took part in the event representing all the consortium’s public and private organisations.
The RADAR-CNS Annual Meeting is an opportunity for people working on the full range of work streams to explain and explore challenges and solutions, as well as to investigate new applications of the technology and plan ahead for its translation to real life settings.
Each of the clinical study work packages gave an update on their recruitment, participant retainment, any challenges faced and shared data and details of upcoming papers.
The meeting also included feedback from their third Young Investigators’ meeting, where researchers at the start of their career had an opportunity to share their experiences of working on RADAR CNS, and talk through issues relating to wellbeing and working during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition, nine members of their Patient Advisory Board from five countries (UK, Ireland, Greece, Italy and Romania) joined them over the course of the annual meeting. They gave feedback on how well the project has done to date, as well as pointers for future improvements.
Simon Lees, from the Patient Advisory Board, said “Although virtual, the meeting was extremely well organised as usual allowing participants to contribute at all times. This allowed the progress of all Work Packages to be clearly understood. In addition, the Parallel Sessions presented by each Work Package leader on Day 2, included full discussion on how each medical condition, was to be taken forward with timelines agreed. This enabled the meeting to become a resounding success for all attendees.”
Professor Matthew Hotopf CBE from King’s College London, who co-leads RADAR-CNS and represents the project on Neuronet´s Scientific Coordination Board, thanked the Patient Advisory Board for their continued involvement. He also said, “It’s a great shame that we aren’t able to meet face to face in Italy. It is difficult to mimic a face to face meeting, but I hope people are able to participate fully in the conversations online. It’s a really exciting time to be in the consortium and for all our work packages to continue working together closely as we analyse complex novel data.”
“The pandemic has been hugely challenging for all us, both personally and professionally. But what has been striking about RADAR is that the technology and field of remote technology has worked well and we’ve been able to recruit while other studies have had to close down.”
This news post was originally posted here: https://www.radar-cns.org/newsroom/radar-cns-annual-meeting-takes-place-virtually