Events: EphMRA Annual Conference 2017 round-up

We were delighted to present, exhibit and sponsor this year’s EphMRA Annual Conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Director and EphMRA board member, Richard Head, Director, Jennifer Redfearn and Associate Director, An-hwa Lee represented us at the conference. On the Tuesday An-Hwa, who is a member of the EphMRA Learning and Development Committee, convened one of three of the pre-conference training workshops entitled ‘Skills Workshop: Qualitative’ which covered ethnography and projective techniques as qualitative methodologies.

We are delighted that Richard Head was announced at the conference as joint winner of the 2017 EphMRA President's Award. According to EphMRA, Richard was nominated because he has been a long-standing supportive member of the Board who is always happy to volunteer and share his experiences.

Richard also presented a session on what the growing emphasis on patient centricity means for healthcare market researchers, incorporating feedback from some of our clients about how this trend is impacting their work. The presentation included several case studies across the breadth of our recent patient research.

Jennifer Redfearn presented a paper in the Future Leaders session called ‘Rare disease market research online communities (MROCs) – a 360 degree look at this important data collection methodology’. Her paper discussed how to attain an in-depth, meaningful understanding of patients with rare diseases or conditions.

Several themes emerged over the course of the conference, including the use of digital ethnography to provide deep understanding of how patients live with their conditions, overcoming many of the biases inherent in more traditional research methods, and using animations and video as research outputs to deliver rich insights that are memorable and actionable. This resonated with the RP team, as we have been developing new approaches to patient research using mobile data collection and talking about enhanced output formats to maximize stakeholder buy in to research findings.

This year we were again thrilled to sponsor the conference photography. Our photographer, decked out in a Research Partnership T-shirt made his way around the De Beurs van Berlage exhibition centre documenting the three day event for the post conference newsletter and photo-round up which will be available soon for EphMRA members.

The conference was a great opportunity for regional and global pharmaceutical industry players to come together and discuss the pharmaceutical market research industry and we look forward to attending next year’s event. If you were unable to attend the conference, but would like to know more about our papers, services and market research training courses, contact us today. For more information about the conference visit www.ephmra.org