October 4, 2019 | Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI) is welcoming entries for the SCOPE’s 2020 Participant Engagement Award, an annual award given at the Summit for Clinical Ops Executives (SCOPE), February 18-21, 2020 in Orlando, Fla. The Participant Engagement Awards recognize innovation, and change in how the industry communicates with participants in the fields of recruitment and retention in clinical trials.

The deadline for the 2020 award is October 30, 2019.

The SCOPE Participant Engagement Award includes a live pitch and judging component. Finalists are chosen by a panel of judges, and they present their entries live to the audience at SCOPE. The judges and the audience can ask questions of the entrants in the public forum.

The Participant Engagement Award started as a collaboration between Patient Enrollment Advisors, Kelly McKee, current Head of Patient Recruitment at Vertex, and CHI to bring greater visibility to effective engagement with potential participants to further the awareness and participation in clinical trials.

David Sall, President and CEO of Patient Enrollment Advisors, told Clinical Research News the concept of the award was inspired by a desire to bring a greater clarity into what innovations around participant engagement really look like so that there can be greater adoption with concepts that work. "We built this idea around a high energy component to the conference that focused on true engagement and the idea of putting participants first."

Through the Participant Engagement Award, Sall and his fellow judges have seen a phenomenal array of concepts that focus on education and engagement for people looking for trials to general awareness of clinical trials as an option. He says he's excited to see what this year's submission have to offer.

"This year we are hoping to see some more submissions from smaller biotech and CROs to share some of their innovations in engagement," Sall says. "Last year we had several submissions around diversity, and [we] want to see how they have performed, [as well as] additional ideas to keep the conversation going around this critical topic."