What is the PIs of the Future network? 

The PIs of the Future network is an initiative by U-TRIAL, which brings together clinical researchers at UMC Utrecht who are involved in clinical trials. 

With PIs of the Future, we provide education on various aspects of clinical trials and facilitate best practice exchange and community building across divisions and focus areas. We do this by organizing meetings around a specific topic within the theme of clinical trials. At these meetings we invite experts, but we also learn from each other and provide the opportunity for interaction, questions, and enjoyable networking during the breaks. 

Participants in PIs of the Future find the meetings “accessible and understandable, inspiring” and report that they “go home with new ideas.” 

Our yearly Summer Event 

On June 26, our yearly Summer Event of PIs of the Future took place. After a walking dinner, we explored two topics within the theme of investigator-initiated trials (IITs):  trial methodology and medical devices. 

As we see an increasing complexity in finding the “right’ trial design, we created the opportunity for speed dating with two methodologists of the Julius Centrum, and one from CBG (the Dutch Medicines Evaluation Board) to get a better understanding of several innovative trial design approaches. 

The second part of the meeting was reserved for two pitches covering the topic of in-house development of medical devices. The speakers touched on topics like: what is a medical device, CE registration, IP, funding, and investors. The speakers were from the Utrecht Holdings and  the Cardiology Department 

Participants  found the latest Summer Event a positive experience, highlighting the excellent combination of networking opportunities and informative content. Pitches followed by personal interaction with speakers also proved to work well to extract a lot of relevant information for the attendees.