International Early Career Researcher Workshops
Thinking the Future for ME
- a Network for Young ME Researchers
The Thinking the Future conferences were research meetings organised by the charity to encourage
biomedical research into ME and international collaboration amongst young and early career researchers.
This has been a major objective of the charity and was a natural progression following
years of arranging and hosting the international ME conferences and colloquiums.
To ensure that a foundation of biomedical research into ME can be sustained and to encourage
new ideas from new areas then we cannot rely just on this family of researchers that has been built up from all parts of the world.
We need to draw in knowledge and expertise from other areas – as well as encourage
early career researchers – and young researchers.
An international family of researchers working together had been facilitated by the Invest in ME Research BRMEC* Biomedical Research into ME Colloquiums held annually in London, UK, since 2011.
As part of the EMERG (European ME Research Group) concept - which aims to build a network of close European biomedical research collaboration to make rapid advances in research and funding for ME - in 2018 the charity initiated the young/early career researcher conference - Thinking the Future - an initiative to build an international network of new and young research capacity for the future.
We continued this into 2019, in collaboration with the USA National Institutes of Health (NIH),
to produce TtF events in Washington DC and London.
Then the pandemic occurred and halted everything.
Past Thinking the Future Events
Copy of the TtF2019UK Agenda
This was possibly the largest ME/CFS meeting I had ever been to, which indicates how fast the research field is growing. There were 4 days of talks from before 9am until after 6pm every day and the talks were kept to around 20 minutes each.
It began on Tuesday the 28th of May with the young investigator conference coined “Thinking the Future”, an initiative started at the Invest in ME conference last year and elaborated upon at the NIH meeting just a couple of months ago. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of PhD students and the depth of their presentations.
We discussed the paths to take for a future career in ME/CFS, the methods we could use to maintain momentum and how to keep the young investigators encouraged to move forward.
Many young investigators commented that patient engagement was a strong source of positive experiences for them, so I would like to openly acknowledge and thank those patients that contact researchers the world over. The mutual benefits of researcher-patient interaction are truly remarkable.
Chris Armstrong
Stanford
Invest in ME Research and the NIH joined forces last year to set up a series of “Thinking the Future” workshops. Their idea is that by bringing together a group of international young researchers in ME/CFS ideas would be shared, and collaborations initiated. Having joined their recent meeting in London, I hope that such events can be expanded into workshops or conferences hosted in centres of ME research around the world.
This workshop tied in well with a previous one in Bethesda (USA). Good feedback from that event influenced the setup in London. In particular, with such a small group, introducing those present at the start was an important change, and helped to facilitate conversations during breaks and over dinner.
As I am currently writing a review article on the biomedical basis of ME, it was invaluable to see so many presentations and to have a chance to discuss them with the presenters.Overall, my view is that we need more well-powered studies into the biomedical causes of ME, and further replication work. But from this workshop I am hopeful that the field is beginning to move in a good direction, and that the standard and quality of science are continuing to improve.
Joshua Dibble
Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine
University of Edinburgh
Young EMERG
Following the resumption of in person colloquiums and conferences in 2023 the charity initiated Young EMERG - the European ME Research Group Early-career Researcher Network to reinforce the commitment to developing capacity and interest in research into myalgic encephalomyelitis.
The first Young EMERG workshop was organised in June 2023, prior to the #BRMEC12 colloquium. Young EMERG formed an executive committee and another workshop was organised in 2024. Young EMERG also came together in other ways - by writing a well-received paper and now becoming involved in the World Health Organisation's Youth4Health initiative. One can read more of Young EMERG using this link .
