The need for clear criteria for the selection of participants in scientific workshops

Scientific workshops are held to develop important documents for clinical practice and policymaking. In these workshops, people with different skills and backgrounds meet to discuss, plan and conduct the development of systematic reviews and clinical guidelines that will be references for researchers, clinicians, patients and other stakeholders, such as insurance companies. The aim of this opinion article is to initiate a discussion on the need for clear and measurable criteria for the selection of participants in scientific workshops. Some examples of workshops in different dental disciplines are used to illustrate that apparently there is no transparent reporting of the criteria used to select participants. Some ethical implications are described in this article, as well as some suggestions to increase transparency in the process of selecting the participants for these scientific workshops. It is expected that overall trust in research, including from parties not directly associated with it, will increase when these selection criteria are transparently reported.