INMD IAB Meeting Highlights – June 2009

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June 11-13, 2009
Quebec City, Quebec

The Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism, and Diabetes held their IAB Meeting in Quebec City.

Guest presenters for the 26th Institute Advisory Board meeting were:

  1. Dr. Steve James the Director of the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition in the National Institute of Diabetes &Digestive & Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He gave an informative presentation entitled; Strategic Planning In NIDDK: Transforming health through discovery.
  2. Dr. Ian Graham, CIHR Vice-President of Knowledge translation gave a detailed and informative presentation. He addressed Knowledge synthesis, Dissemination, Knowledge exchange, and the ethically sound application of knowledge
  3. Dr. Denis Richard from Université of Laval and the CIHR Research Chair in Obesity gave a compelling lecture on Obesity.
  4. Bruno Theoret from CIHR , provided a high level summary of the Bibliometric study of obesity research in Canada, 1998-2007 prepared for INMD.

INMD Activity Report

Scientific Director Philip Sherman provided a detailed report on the Institutes' activities since April 2009 which was presented to the Board.

He discussed several partnerships that INMD has been developing. The future direction of CIHR places an emphasis on Institutes working together. CIHR President Alain Beaudet encourages cross-institute initiatives. Dr. Sherman gave the example of a competition to be announced in response to the isotope crisis and reported that INMD will be one of several institutes contributing to this initiative.

INMD Stakeholder Summits

P. Sherman reported on the INMD Strategic Planning Summits that had occurred so far: Nutrition (May 31), Digestive Health (June 2) and Population Health (June 8). All were well attended and P. Sherman was impressed by stakeholders' level of engagement and the quality of the feedback. INMD has yet to meet with the Lipoprotein, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Diabetes and Obesity research communities. INMD staff is planning these summits for the fall of 2009.

INMD Strategic Planning Criteria for Prioritizing

The INMD Strategic Planning process was discussed. A draft framework for Priority Setting was presented. The Board was then divided into two groups and asked to review and discuss the draft framework. The small groups were tasked to identify criteria for priority setting.

Ethics at CIHR

P. Sherman noted that the 5-year Mid-Term Evaluation of INMD recommended that INMD continue to contribute to the implementation of CIHR's overall ethics mandate and ensure adequate communication of the activities and results to relevant audiences and stakeholder groups. Ethics will be an important part of the new INMD Strategic Plan, and the IAB will need to consider how ethics will be reflected in the Plan.

Other Institute updates included: Grants and Awards – P. Bélanger presented an overview of funding since April 2009 and an outline of all INMD led and partnered competitions in progress. He discussed CIHR initiatives being led by other institutes that present opportunities for INMD to partner. The next IAB will be in November in Winnipeg.