Building a sustainable complementary and alternative medicine research network in Europe

Since CAMbrella is a networking project funded by the European Commission explicitly to build and sustain a complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) research network in Europe, communication and dissemination play a large role and form a work package of their own. The present article gives an outline of the communication and dissemination work in the CAMbrella consortium. The intensive building of sound internal communication is an essential part in establishing a functioning structure for collaboration in a diverse group of 16 partner institutions from 12 countries, as exists in the CAMbrella project.

The means and tools for dissemination of results to the scientific community and the European public at large, as well as to the European policy makers, are presented. The development of the corporate design and a dissemination strategy are described in detail. In addition, some basic information regarding previous CAM research efforts, which might be interesting for future consortium building in the field of CAM research, is given.

Internal communication within a heterogeneous research group, the maintenance of a work-oriented style of communication and a consensus oriented effort in establishing dissemination tools and products will be essential for any future consortium in the CAM field.

The outlook shows the necessity for active political encouragement of CAM research and the desideratum of a Pan-European institution analogous to the NIH (National Institutes of Health) in the USA.