Medical School joins new Erasmus+ project focusing on sustainable clinical trials

UNIC Medical School partners to promote greener and more sustainable research practices.

UNIC’s Medical School is taking part in a new Erasmus+ project titled GREEN-TRIALS, which aims to develop an online, open-access curriculum focused on sustainable clinical trial design.

The GREEN-TRIALS project aims to create a set of training materials to introduce practical ways to embed environmental sustainability into academic clinical research. These resources will be complemented by teachers’ guides and an online learning platform.

The proposed curriculum will target postgraduate students in medicine, pharmacy, biomedicine, and health professions, while adapted workshop materials will support the upskilling of existing clinical study staff.

GREEN-TRIALS is coordinated by Masaryk University, in collaboration with University College Cork, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network – ECRIN, and the University of Nicosia.

The three-year project recently held its kick-off meeting in Brno, Czech Republic, bringing together partners to align on goals and begin shaping the curriculum.

Zoi-Dorothea Pana, Professor of Paediatric Epidemiology and the Associate Dean for Research at the Medical School, is representing the university in this project. Commenting on the initiative, Prof. Pana said:

‘The strategies for decreasing carbon footprint and conserving resources in clinical trials are known and feasible across the entire clinical trial lifecycle. However, there is no formal training to facilitate the conduct of greener trials globally. Our mission is to focus on the education and training of postgraduate students and trialists, ensuring they are well equipped to drive sustainable practices in clinical trials.