The Global academic research organization network: Data sharing to cure diseases and enable learning health systems.

Introduction:Global data sharing is essential. This is the premise of the Academic Research Organization (ARO) Council, which was initiated in Japan in 2013 and has since been expanding throughout Asia and into Europe and the United States. The volume of data is growing exponentially, providing not only challenges but also the clear opportunity to understand and treat diseases in ways not previously considered. Harnessing the knowledge within the data in a successful way can provide researchers and clinicians with new ideas for therapies while avoiding repeats of failed experiments. This knowledge transfer from research into clinical care is at the heart of a learning health system. Methods:The ARO Council wishes to form a worldwide complementary system for the benefit of all patients and investigators, catalyzing more efficient and innovative medical research processes. Thus, they have organized Global ARO Network Workshops to bring interested parties together, focusing on the aspects necessary to make such a global effort successful. One such workshop was held in Austin, Texas, in November 2017. Representatives from Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Europe, and the United States reported on their efforts to encourage data sharing and to use research to inform care through learning health systems. Results:This experience report summarizes presentations and discussions at the Global ARO Network Workshop held in November 2017 in Austin, TX, with representatives from Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Europe, and the United States. Themes and recommendations to progress their efforts are explored. Standardization and harmonization are at the heart of these discussions to enable data sharing. In addition, the transformation of clinical research processes through disruptive innovation, while ensuring integrity and ethics, will be key to achieving the ARO Council goal to overcome diseases such that people not only live longer but also are healthier and happier as they age. Conclusions:The achievement of global learning health systems will require further exploration, consensus-building, funding aligned with incentives for data sharing, standardization, harmonization, and actions that support global interests for the benefit of patients

1st INCF Workshop on Global Portal Services for Neuroscience

The goal of this meeting was to map out existing portal services for neuroscience, identify their features and future plans, and outline opportunities for synergistic developments. The workshop discussed alternative formats of future global and integrated portal services

Meeting report : 1st international functional metagenomics workshop May 7–8, 2012, St. Jacobs, Ontario, Canada

This report summarizes the events of the 1st International Functional Metagenomics Workshop. The workshop was held on May 7 and 8 in St. Jacobs, Ontario, Canada and was focused on building a core international functional metagenomics community, exploring strategic research areas, and identifying opportunities for future collaboration and funding. The workshop was initiated by researchers at the University of Waterloo with support from the Ontario Genomics Institute (OGI), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the University of Waterloo

EU Market Access Teams: New Instruments to Tackle Non-tariff Barriers to Trade. College of Europe EU Diplomacy Paper 2009/9, December 2009

In reaction to modern protectionism, the European Union has reshaped its trade policy based on the principles of partnership and prioritisation. With the Market Access Partnership it has formalised a new diplomatic trade tool in third countries: the Market Access Teams. These teams are networks with multiple stakeholders and they are acting in a decentralised manner in the respective host countries. The various Market Access Teams created worldwide since 2007 underline the growing interest from the EU, Member States and businesses in offensive trade policy instruments. These instruments should be directed at opening foreign markets and eliminating obstacles to trade for European exporters. This paper analyses under what conditions Market Access Teams can effectively remove non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs) for European exports in third countries. It focuses on non-tariff barriers for the European pharmaceutical industry in three Asian countries (Philippines, Indonesia and Japan). Pharmaceutical products are truly global products which are easy to transport and confronted by global competition and they heavily rely on European intellectual property rights knowledge. I argue that Market Access Teams in their composition and function are an adequate translation of the Commission’s strategic ambition to deliver more tangible results for European exporters through offensive trade policy. A Market Access Team is likely to be more successful, the greater the cohesiveness of its members, the more salient a non-tariff barrier to trade for the European Commission and the less salient that NTB in the host country. The study draws on trade literature, news sources, questionnaires and interviews

1st INCF Workshop on Sustainability of Neuroscience Databases

The goal of the workshop was to discuss issues related to the sustainability of neuroscience databases, identify problems and propose solutions, and formulate recommendations to the INCF. The report summarizes the discussions of invited participants from the neuroinformatics community as well as from other disciplines where sustainability issues have already been approached. The recommendations for the INCF involve rating, ranking, and supporting database sustainability

Science and Risk Analysis in CPTPP/SPS-Plus: Role Model or Unbearable Burden?

Trade in food and agricultural products accounts for a major part of global trade, and the trade continues to alert domestic consumers to the risks associated with modern food processing and production methods. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), now rebranded as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), represents a new model of mega-regional trade pacts posed to set higher standards for promoting and streamlining trade liberalization. Because of concerns with national food safety regulations that could constitute forms of non-tariff barriers, the CPTPP, in contrast to the World Trade Organization (WTO), stipulates further rules on parties’ sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), achieving a type of role model of SPS-plus. This article explores the legal implications and progressiveness of the SPS-plus design, particularly focusing on the requirements of scientific evidence and risk analysis. The SPS-plus that sets hurdles for national regulatory regimes largely reflects WTO jurisprudence, international health standards, and the national regulations of the United States. I argue that the role model may provide momentum to modernize parties’ food safety regimes, but the cost of full compliance could be high. Genuine collaboration, experience-sharing, and technological and financial support between developed countries and less developed countries may alleviate the difficulties of implementation and promote coherence

Reinventing the Risk Sharing Mechanism of Defined Benefit Pension Plans

In this paper, I will introduce several new mechanisms of risk sharing regarding occupational retirement provisions, based on the analysis of present risk sharing between sponsoring employers and plan participants, individual participants and participants as a group, active members and beneficiaries (including deferred members), etc. Among others, I will introduce "Ring-fenced" DB (RfDB) plans, which introduce "share" structure into contributions and reserves, prohibit "lending" from active members to beneficiaries when the plan is in an underfunded status (actuarial deficiency), and allow temporary benefit reductions within prescribed ranges according to the funding level. The risk active members bear will be eased in RfDB plans, and market interest risk sponsoring employers bear will also be eased, because some portion of benefits becomes conditional. RfDB plans allow investments with greater risk tolerance, which may benefit both labor and management from a long-term perspective. It will also be possible to ease funding rules substantially for RfDB plans. It is said that DB plans are on the verge of extinction mainly by the threats from accounting standards. Taking this into account, it is necessary to expand the variation of risk sharing mechanisms in occupational retirement provisions."Ring-fenced" DB plan, "Retrospective" DB plan, Sequential plan, Combination plan, Collective DC plan, DC conversion