Patient Organisation Bursary: First Awardees Revealed!

Dear ISPEP Members,

We are excited to announce the first Patient Organisations (POs) and Patient Advocacy Groups (PAGs) to receive free ISPEP membership as part of a new pilot bursary initiative.

This follows review by the ISPEP team of applications submitted by POs and PAGs in December 2024. Applicants were required to include three ideas for high-quality Hub content (e.g., case studies, articles) as part of their submission. POs and PAGs will be supported to develop Hub content during the pilot period so that patient voices may be amplified among the ISPEP community.

The first POs/PAGs to receive the ISPEP Bursary (and their named representatives) are as follows:

Patient Organisation / Patient Advocacy Group	Named Representative
International Bureau for Epilepsy	Marie Ennis-O’Connor
Pain Alliance for Europe	Nadia Malliou
Lewy Body International	Jacqui Cannon
Thyroid Disease Awareness Kenya (TDAK) Foundation	Sarah Katulle

How to Participate (‘second wave’ and beyond)

The bursary will be available to up to six additional POs and PAGs later in the year. If you are interested in the bursary and represent a PO/PAG or would like to nominate a PO/PAG to receive the bursary, please get in touch via the Hub to share your content ideas / nominate a PO/PAG as applicable.

What This Means for ISPEP

This initiative showcases ISPEP’s dedication to building a strong, inclusive community of patient engagement professionals. By inviting POs and PAGs to actively contribute to our Hub, we aim to amplify the patient voice while enriching the resources available to our members.

We believe this pilot will strengthen ISPEP’s impact, create a deeper collaboration across all stakeholders representing PEPs, and help us refine our processes for engaging patient organisations in meaningful ways for building measurable impact in medicines development.

Thank you for your continued support in making ISPEP the leading society for patient engagement professionals.

We are excited to embark on this initiative and look forward to working closely with our new PO/PAG members.

Emma Sutcliffe (Founder, CPO) and Alexandra Charge (CEO)