InTBIR 1st Conference - October 18-20, 2011 | Brussels, Belgium

The European Commission (EC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) jointly sponsored a workshop on October18–20, 2011 in Brussels to discuss the feasibility and benefits of an international collaboration in the field of traumaticbrain injury (TBI) research. The workshop brought together scientists, clinicians, patients, and industry representativesfrom around the globe as well as funding agencies from the EU, Spain, the United States, and Canada. Sessions tackledboth the possible goals and governance of a future initiative and the scientific questions that would most benefit from anintegrated international effort: how to optimize data collection and sharing; injury classification; outcome measures;clinical study design; and statistical analysis. There was a clear consensus that increased dialogue and coordination ofresearch at an international level would be beneficial for advancing TBI research, treatment, and care. To this end, the EC,the NIH, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research expressed interest in developing a framework for an internationalinitiative for TBI Research (InTBIR). The workshop participants recommended that InTBIR initially focus on collecting,standardizing, and sharing clinical TBI data for comparative effectiveness research, which will ultimately result in bettermanagement and treatments for TBI.