EGPRN Logo

Description of EGPRN, February 2015

On behalf of the Executive Board and Council of National Representatives of the European General Practice Research Network, we would like to warmly invite readers of Wonca News, especially those with an interest in primary care research, to look at our organisation, its meetings and its projects.

EGPRN is the Network organization of general practitioners/family doctors and other health professionals involved in research in primary care and family medicine in Europe. This year we shall hold our 80th meeting of European primary care researchers in Timisoara, Romania, in May.

EGPRN offers members the opportunity to meet researcher colleagues by organising meetings twice annually, prompting local and international research collaboration amongst researchers in family medicine. At such meetings research papers are presented and discussed at length, in order to allow participants showcase and improve their research projects.

  1. Key EGPRN activities include: conferences twice annually, research courses, public website database of past abstracts, the European research agenda reference document, regular reports from national representatives, position papers on the theme of the conferences published in European journals to summarise each conference’s proceedings.
  2. Services to members: mentoring of researchers, networking of like-minded researchers, fora for research discussion, methodology workshops, publication of selected research abstracts in European Journal of General Practice, EJGP articles on-line access
  3. EGPRN reference materials: materials on website, including research agenda and database of abstracts

The Department of Family Medicine of the University of Maastricht offers support as the central administrative office for the activities of EGPRN, through the EGPRN Co-ordination Centre which is located in that department.

Membership

EGPRN is open for Individual and Institutional memberships, via online registration on http://www.egprn.org/. It is relatively inexpensive to become a member of EGPRN and to attend meetings. The accessible membership and conference fees make it attractive to all European primary care researchers

EGPRN Conferences

Official meetings are in spring: every second full weekend in May and in autumn: every third full weekend in October. Different volunteer countries, hosted by the national representatives, take care of the local organisation. The meetings include oral sessions on a predetermined conference theme as well as free standing papers, "one-slide/five-minutes" presentations and "guided-poster sessions".

EGPRN meetings maintain a "workshop format" which although offers constructive criticism, in a friendly and safe environment. EGPRN meetings are popular with both senior and junior researchers. Selected abstracts of the meetings are published twice a year in The European Journal of General Practice.  EGPRN, together with national colleges and academic bodies, organizes "International Courses on Research Methodology in PHC", offering the expertise of an international teaching staff.

Future plans

In addition to already established activities EGPRN has several plans for its future development

  1. Better cooperation with other Wonca Europe networks in common projects.
  2. Work on partnering in EU projects
  3. Improved networking with institutional members
  4. Database of on-going projects and research interests for EGPRN members

For more information
Please visit the EGPRN website: http://www.egprn.org

EGPRN meetings have a separate conference website linked to http://meeting.egprn.org/