The Scientific Committee (SciCom) of BIRD evaluates study proposals and coordinates ongoing trials.
The committee consists of 5 members including the SciCom chair. All BIRD members can apply to participate in the SciCom with the goal having a broad representation of both academic and non-academic centers. One committee member also serves as a national ECCO representative.
The roles of SciCom include:
To evaluate and discuss proposals for scientific studies (commercial trials, prospective and retrospective investigator-initiated studies (IIS), registries, …).
To provide opinion on scientific proposals to the Governing Board through the SciCom Chair.
To ensure proper conduct of all BIRD initiated studies/projects according to ICH-GCP (if applicable), in collaboration with the coordinating principal investigator (PI), sponsor/data controller and BIRD Office.
To promote the use of the BIRD Registry (i.e. the national IBD registry) for retrospective studies.
To participate in the development of content for the BIRD website.
To identify one of the members as ECCO National Representative.
To interact with BINAstoria, BioBIRD (i.e. the BIRD IBD biobank registry) and BIRD Registry.
TO interact with other national study groups on scientific projects, for example through the ECCO platform after approval of the Governing Board.
To stimulate and facilitate gastroenterology units to set up IBD research centers.
To organize training for clinical study centers (i.e., GCP, practical course, mentorship).
To elect one member that will participate in the organization of the BIRD annual congress.
To review publication rules.
To review Belgian Week of Gastroenterology abstracts.
To review the BIRD grant applications (together with the Governing Board).
To interact with BIRD Partners (participate to BIRD speed dating event, BIRD Partner meeting, adboards…) and other relevant stakeholders (national patient organisations, FAGG/AFMPS, KCE, VDAB, mutual assistance societies, RIZIV/INAMI, …).
