Have listened some more of the video. Worth a look for advocates. Not as exciting as videos about the latest research findings but, and arguably more important, it has some thoughtful discussion about how to build stronger foundations and capacity to enable future research of better quality. Three key themes
1) An ambitious MRC application is underway to try to get funding to build a much better ecosystem for ME research with improved infrastructure, fewer barriers and more support especially for researchers new to the field, also talk of a virtual centre of excellence (also as yet unfunded)
-> Fingers and toes crossed this comes off, it's a much needed initiative. Good, too, to see some broad strategic thinking. And that Chris Ponting is clearly on a mission to leverage all he possibly can from DecodeME
2) Possibly linked to the above(?) there's a project of creating a pool of PPI volunteers for researchers to draw on
-> Mixed feelings about this. PPI with expert patients can work really well as demonstrated by DecodeME. But I have reservations. One, there are too few expert patients to carry the load and those there are may understandably be inclined to want to work with trusted researchers rather than with the sort of researchers who most need expert patient input but who'll also be the least inclined to be guided by it. Two, there's a risk of PPI being implemented in a tokenistic way and that could be worse than no PPI at all. But if funders increasingly demand PPI, as appears to be the current trend, then creating a formal structure for a pool of PPI volunteers may not be a bad idea. People signing up for this sort of commitment may be more motivated to upskill themselves to become effective and representative contributors, and training to that effect could be included in the scheme (I don't think training was mentioned in the video though)
3) Discussion about the need for replication studies, and about ways to make more of them happen
-> Replication or lack thereof is one of my hobby horses so was pleased to see this being discussed with a view to finding solutions. As an example of such a study Claire Francis Research Fellowship recipient Audrey briefly presented the replication attempt of the something-in-the-blood findings (ongoing and no results yet). It sounded like a well designed study and Audrey came across really well