BECON MEETING MINUTES

BECON MEETING – November 19, 2003

The NIH Bioengineering Consortium (BECON) met on Wednesday, November 19, from 3:00 to 4:30 PM in Room 151 of Building 1 on the NIH Main Campus in Bethesda , Maryland . The following text provides the minutes for this meeting.

BRP Solicitation – The new Bioengineering Research Partnership (BRP) solicitation was released in the “NIH Guide” on November 17 as PAR-04-023. The solicitation incorporates some recommendations from the BECON 2003 Symposium on Catalyzing Team Science which was conducted in June 2003. Major differences relative to previous BRP announcement include (l) a two-month lag time between letter of intent and application deadline, (2) incorporation of a “lead investigator” concept to provide “credit” for intellectual leaders of the project, and (3) a three-year effective period for the solicitation (ends in August 2006).

BECON 2003 Report - A draft report of the BECON 2003 Symposium on Catalyzing Team Science was distributed to BECON members prior to the meeting with a request for comments.

BECON 2004 Symposium Status – Planning is continuing for the BECON 2004 Symposium scheduled for June 2004 and tentatively titled “ Informatics for Clinical Decision-Making in then 21 st Century”. A Coordinating Committee has been active for several weeks, and an extramural Advisory Committee has been selected.

NIH Roadmap – As information for future consideration, implementation plans for the NIH Roadmap initiatives were discussed.

Next BECON Meeting - The next BECON meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, December 17, from 3 to 5 PM in Room 151 of Building 1 on the NIH Main Campus in Bethesda . A preliminary agenda will be available about a week before the meeting..