The overarching goal of the University of Washington's proposed International Biomedical Research Ethics Fellowship is to build research ethics capacity in the developing and newly industrialized countries. In addition, this program provides essential biomedical and research ethics training for all Fogarty-funded programs at the University of Washington (UW). The Fellowship will offer a formal educational curriculum that includes foundational core courses complemented by elective courses. The academic curriculum is designed to allow each Fellow to choose electives that will speak to the specific cultural, social and economic challenges they will face when they return to their home countries and seek to implement research ethics programs and enhanced human subjects'protections. The post-program phase of the program will be a mentored application of the educational intervention and/or strategic plan to improve research ethics and practice in the home country. Ultimately, this will strengthen the ability to initiate and conduct their own scientific research and simultaneously develop the ability for a more equal partnership with the research enterprises of the developed world. The UW Program's target countries are Thailand, China, Vietnam and Indonesia, countries in which we have already have active faculty, institutional and research collaborations. Our proposed Fellowship program will work closely with extant Fogarty-funded programs at the University of Washington in developing and implementing this training program. Our program is modeled on the University's highly successful Humphrey and Population Leadership programs that focus on developing country public administration and population health respectively. It too will offer a graduate certificate and seek to improve developing country capacity. We anticipate that the International Biomedical Research Ethics Fellows will receive significant benefits from the collaborative and multi-directional learning available through interaction with the thriving Population Leadership, Humphrey and Fogarty Fellows programs at the University of Washington.
