A follow-up to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Global Science Forum (GSF) initiative, the Clinical Research Initiative for Global Health (CRIGH) aims to support international collaboration on clinical research for the benefit of patients, healthcare professionals, and health systems.
Launched in October 2016, CRIGH will optimise clinical research programmes in participating countries, develop global standards on clinical research, promote the take-up of innovative methodology and technologies, and encourage international cooperation to rapidly and efficiently respond to global health challenges (e.g. Ebola and Zika).
The CRIGH consortium is composed of Members and Observers (research institutions, organisations, or consortia of research institutions). The secretariat is shared between the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and ECRIN.
A unique initiative to address obstacles to global collaboration
Various initiatives have already been established to address specific bottlenecks to global collaboration in clinical trials. Yet, to date, no global initiative has striven to address the wide range of obstacles to global cooperation in clinical research. Moreover, while some bilateral cooperation agreements have been signed by national partners to support the conduct of multi-country trials, no multilateral cooperation framework has been created to promote collaboration across all geographic areas, including in developing countries. With its broad international mandate, CRIGH aims to fill these significant gaps.
The OECD GSF initiative
The OECD-GSF initiative was introduced in 2009, following a European Science Foundation (ESF) ‘forward look’ document on investigator-driven clinical trials, and supported by the Spanish and German governments. It resulted in a report on fostering international cooperation in non-commercial trials in 2011 followed, in 2012, by the OECD Council Recommendation on the Governance of Clinical Trials, proposing guidance for harmonised and risk-adapted trial oversight.