Deadline: 19 November 2023 00:00
The World Health Organization (WHO) is seeking experts to serve as members of one of the Technical Advisory Group on the Global Clinical Platform. This document provides information about the group, the expert profiles being sought, the process to express interest, and the process of selection.
Background
The WHO Global Clinical Platform allows member states, facilities, and research organizations to support the clinical characterization of patients with emerging infections. It provides a standardized platform for data entry, data warehousing, and data analysis which enable a rich and dynamic understanding of global patterns of disease at the patient level. Data are anonymized and owned by the contributors. The platform has been used predominantly to inform clinical management of COVID-19. Using the same structures and approach, our understanding of other emerging infectious diseases can be similarly addressed, including cholera, viral haemorrhagic fevers (including Ebola), and mpox.
Functions of the Technical Advisory Group on the Global Clinical Platform
In its capacity as an advisory body to WHO, the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) have the following functions:
- Providing advice on the deployment and development of the platform, including how future platform use can facilitate and inform patient care, health systems implementation, and health policy.
- Supplying, filtering, and prioritising clinical questions and areas of investigation on which the platform should focus;
- Reviewing plans for data use, analysis, and interpretation within the platform, to ensure maximum relevance to global, regional and country-level readiness and response;
- Giving input into draft technical documents, reports and other documents arising from the work of the platform, within professional areas of expertise;
- Promoting the timely sharing of clinical information arising from the platform.
Operations of the Technical Advisory Group on the Global Clinical Platform
1. The AG shall normally meet at least once each year. However, WHO may convene additional meetings. AG meetings may be held in person (at WHO headquarters in Geneva or another location, as determined by WHO) or virtually, via video or teleconference.
AG meetings may be held in open and/or closed session, as decided by the Chairperson in consultation with WHO.
- a. Open sessions: Open sessions shall be convened for the sole purpose of the exchange of non-confidential information and views and may be attended by Observers (as defined in paragraph III.3 below).
- b. Closed sessions: The sessions dealing with the formulation of recommendations and/or advice to WHO shall be restricted to the members of the AG and essential WHO Secretariat staff.
2. The quorum for TAG meetings shall be two thirds of the members.
3. WHO may, at its sole discretion, invite external individuals from time to time to attend the open sessions of an advisory group, or parts thereof, as “observers”. Observers may be invited either in their personal capacity, or as representatives from a governmental institution / intergovernmental organization, or from a non-State actor. WHO will request observers invited in their personal capacity to complete a confidentiality undertaking and a declaration of interests form prior to attending a session of the advisory group. Invitations to observers attending as representatives from non-State actors will be subject to WHO internal due diligence and risk assessment including conflict of interest considerations in accordance with the Framework for engagement with non-State actors (FENSA). Observers invited as representatives may also be requested to complete a confidentiality undertaking. Observers shall normally attend meetings of the AG at their own expense and be responsible for making all arrangements in that regard.
At the invitation of the Chairperson, observers may be asked to present their personal views and/or the policies of their organization. Observers will not participate in the process of adopting recommendations of the TAG.
4. The TAG may decide to establish smaller working groups (sub-groups of the TAG) to work on specific issues. Their deliberations shall take place via teleconference or videoconference. For these sub-groups, no quorum requirement will apply; the outcome of their deliberations will be submitted to the TAG for review at one of its meetings.
5. TAG members are expected to attend meetings. If a member misses two consecutive meetings, WHO may end his/her appointment as a member of the AG.
- A yearly report shall be submitted by the TAG to WHO (the Assistant Director-General of the responsible Cluster). All recommendations from the TAG are advisory to WHO, who retains full control over any subsequent decisions or actions regarding any proposals, policy issues or other matters considered by the TAG.
- The TAG shall normally make recommendations by consensus. If, in exceptional circumstances, a consensus on a particular issue cannot be reached, minority opinions will be reflected in the meeting report.
- Active participation is expected from all TAG members, including in working groups, teleconferences, and interaction over email. TAG members may, in advance of TAG meetings, be requested to review meeting materials and to provide their views for consideration by the TAG.
- WHO shall determine the modes of communication by the TAG, including between WHO and the TAG members, and the TAG members among themselves for the purposes of TAG business.
- TAG members shall not speak on behalf of, or represent, the TAG or WHO to any third party.
Who can express interest?
The Technical Advisory Group on the Global Clinical Platform will be multidisciplinary, with members who have a range of technical knowledge, skills and experience relevant to patient-level data which inform clinical practice for emerging infection. In the selection of the TAG members, consideration shall be given to attaining an adequate distribution of technical expertise, geographical representation and gender balance. Approximately 24 members may be selected.
WHO welcomes expressions of interest from:
- Healthcare professionals with interests in clinical monitoring and evaluation of emerging infectious disease.
- Data scientists and IT experts with experience of health surveillance and multi-platform data aggregation and harmonisation.
- Health service users and advocates for the safe and effective use of anonymised patient data in improving healthcare, especially in the context of emerging infectious disease.
Submitting your expression of interest
To register your interest in being considered for the Technical Advisory Group on the Global Clinical Platform, please complete this survey by 19 November 2023 00:00 (midnight)
You will be asked to provide the following documents:
- A cover letter (maximum 2 A4 sheets, single spaced 12pt font), indicating your motivation to apply and how you satisfy the selection criteria. Please note that, TAG members operate in their personal capacity. Therefore, do not use the letterhead or other identification of your employer;
- Your abbreviated curriculum vitae (maximum 5 A4 sheets);
- A signed and completed Declaration of Interests (DOI) form for WHO Experts, available at https://www.who.int/about/ethics/declarations-of-interest
After submission, your expression of interest will be reviewed by WHO. Due to an expected high volume of interest, only selected individuals will be informed.
Important information about the selection processes and conditions of appointment
Members of WHO advisory groups (AGs) must be free of any real, potential or apparent conflicts of interest. To this end, applicants are required to complete the WHO Declaration of Interests for WHO Experts, and the selection as a member of a AG is, amongst other things, dependent on WHO determining that there is no conflict of interest or that any identified conflicts could be appropriately managed (in addition to WHO’s evaluation of an applicant’s experience, expertise and motivation and other criteria).
All AG members will serve in their individual expert capacity and shall not represent any governments, any commercial industries or entities, any research, academic or civil society organizations, or any other bodies, entities, institutions or organizations. They are expected to fully comply with the Code of Conduct for WHO Experts (https://www.who.int/about/ethics/declarations-of-interest). AG members will be expected to sign and return a completed confidentiality undertaking prior to the beginning of the first meeting.
At any point during the selection process, telephone interviews may be scheduled between an applicant and the WHO Secretariat to enable WHO to ask questions relating to the applicant’s experience and expertise and/or to assess whether the applicant meets the criteria for membership in the relevant AG.
The selection of members of the AGs will be made by WHO in its sole discretion, taking into account the following (non-exclusive) criteria: relevant technical expertise; experience in international and country policy work; communication skills; and ability to work constructively with people from different cultural backgrounds and orientations .The selection of AG members will also take account of the need for diverse perspectives from different regions, especially from low and middle-income countries, and for gender balance.
If selected by WHO, proposed members will be sent an invitation letter and a Memorandum of Agreement. Appointment as a member of a AG will be subject to the proposed member returning to WHO the countersigned copy of these two documents.
WHO reserves the right to accept or reject any expression of interest, to annul the open call process and reject all expressions of interest at any time without incurring any liability to the affected applicant or applicants and without any obligation to inform the affected applicant or applicants of the grounds for WHO's action. WHO may also decide, at any time, not to proceed with the establishment of the AG, disband an existing TAG or modify the work of the AG.
WHO shall not in any way be obliged to reveal, or discuss with any applicant, how an expression of interest was assessed, or to provide any other information relating to the evaluation/selection process or to state the reasons for not choosing a member.
WHO may publish the names and a short biography of the selected individuals on the WHO internet.
TAG members will not be remunerated for their services in relation to the AG or otherwise. Travel and accommodation expenses of TAG members to participate in TAG meetings will be covered by WHO in accordance with its applicable policies, rules and procedures.
The appointment will be limited in time as indicated in the letter of appointment.
If you have any questions about this “Call for experts”, please write to COVID_ClinPlatform@who.int; well before the applicable deadline.