The Ethox Centre
Nuffield Department of Population Health
Rosemary Rue Building, Old Road Campus, Headington, Oxford OX3 7LF
Tel:+44(0)1865 287885, Fax:+44(0)1865 287884, E-mail:michael.parker@ethox.ox.ac.uk
Professor Michael Parker
Chair Ethics Advisory Committee
Genomics England
6th January 2015
Dear Colleague,
Re: Invitation to propose Genomics England Clinical Interpretation Partnership (GeCIP) Domains in Ethics,
Social Science, Health Economics and Law
I am writing to invite you to consider submitting a proposal to create – or to express an interest in participating in - a
UK-led multidisciplinary domain or sub-domain in one or more of the areas of ethics, social science, health
economics or law, as part of the Genomics England Clinical Interpretation Partnership (GECIP).
As you may be aware, Genomics England was established by the Department of Health as a company wholly owned
and funded by the UK Department of Health to successfully deliver the 100,000 Genomes Project. Genomics
England and the 100,000 Genomes Project have four main aims. These are to:
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create an ethical and transparent programme based on consent;
bring benefit to patients;
enable new scientific discovery; and to
nurture the development of a UK genomics industry.
As part of this initiative, Genomics England is inviting applications to create UK-led multidisciplinary domains that
will form the Genomics England Clinical Interpretation Partnership (GECIP). The GECIP will be a coalition of
academics, researchers, policy specialists, analysts, NHS clinical teams and trainees working in multidisciplinary
domains designed to drive up the clinical interpretation of the 100,000 Genomes Project; a whole genome
sequencing programme of NHS patients with rare inherited disease, cancer and infectious disease and to improve
understanding of the ethical, social, legal, regulatory, health economic, policy and many other issues associated with
this programme and its intention to have a transformative effect on NHS care.
There are a number of possible ways in which domains or sub-domains in ethics, social science, health economics or
law might be configured. Examples could include, but are not limited to: collaborations to contribute expertise to
clinical/scientific initiatives focussing on particular disease areas; initiatives with a focus on an aspect of genomics
practice with an important ethical, legal, social science, or economic dimension e.g. ‘feedback of findings’;
programmes with a policy or governance focus; or, collaborations focussing on education and training in ethics,
social science, health economics or law. Becoming part of GECIP will enable you or your organisation to add value
to the research being conducted by becoming part of an expert group working to continually develop and apply new
knowledge so that NHS patients suffering from cancer or from rare diseases can benefit from the improved
diagnostics and treatment decisions genomics offers, in the context of high ethical standards and informed by world
leading research in ethics, social science, health economics and law.
A key role of the GECIP and of the Genomics England ethics team will be to facilitate collaborative partnerships
between those with ethics, social science, health economics and law expertise and the groups leading scientific and
clinical activities. Given this, whilst existing or proposed multidisciplinary collaborations bringing together
researchers in the humanities or social science with those in medical research will be particularly welcomed, this is
not a prerequisite for an expression of interest.
Ethox Centre
Director: Professor Michael Parker
Genomics England looks forward to working with funders, researchers and the NHS to maximise the opportunities
from this Clinical Interpretation Partnership. We anticipate that the GECIP will offer the UK the opportunity to
coordinate research endeavour, develop consortia and maximise the early mover opportunity to position the UK as
the premier place to do genomic medicine research, research on the ethical, social, economic, and legal aspects of
the clinical research uses of genomics, and to translate it into excellent patient care. We have provided guidance on
forming GECIP domains which is available at http://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/about-gecip/gecip-domainapplication-guidance/
To register your formal expression of initial interest in forming a GECIP domain, please follow the guidance we have
provided and submit this document to Mario Black at Genomics England by Monday 26th January 2015, 5:00pm.
(via email at mario.black@genomicsengland.co.uk.) Please don’t hesitate to contact Mario in the first instance
should you have any further queries about submitting a formal expression of interest.
We will select successful Introductory Domains for a research period of 10-12 months, with these Domains
beginning work in early 2015. Finally, if you have colleagues who may be interested in considering this invitation,
please do circulate this letter to them. Thank you for considering this invitation.
Kind regards
….