Our ultimate goal is to improve the conduct of human subjects research in Pakistan and the Islamic world by strengthening capacity in bioethics and particularly in research ethics. The specific objectives of this planning grant are: 1. To DEVELOP HUMAN RESOURCES to be able to mount a successful training grant application for a Masters in Bioethics in two years time. 2. To DEVELOP CURRICULUM AND TRAINING PROGRAM for a Masters Program in Bioethics. 3. To DEVELOP A NETWORK for training our faculty and curriculum development, recruitment of future trainees and for sharing of human and material resources amongst national and regional centers. The successful implementation of this planning grant would help us prepare a successful training grant application in 2004. The planning grant would lead to development of a Bioethics Center at the Aga Khan University (AKU), which is one of the premier educational and research institutes of Pakistan, South Asia and the Islamic world. The benefits of a training program I bioethics centre in Pakistan at AKU include: (1) building on 17 years of previous bioethics development at AKU, (2) building on North-South partnerships with funded FIC programs at Toronto, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Cape Town, and Pretoria, (3) providing a culturally sensitive and very economical model for training, (4) capacity building and dissemination of curriculum and other training programs in Pakistan and the region especially the Muslim world, (5) providing a gateway to bioethics in the Islamic world as the first FIC bioethics grant in the Islamic world. The latter is a crucial step in the current geopolitical environment.
