IUPHAR-Ed Core Concepts in Pharmacology (CCP) initiative.
Inspired by core concepts development in other disciplines, the
pharmacology education community embarked on a project aimed at helping
students master the most important concepts of pharmacology. In 2020,
educators from Australia and New Zealand identified 20 core concepts of
pharmacology education [39], which they then defined and unpacked
[40]. The methodology and outcomes developed from this initial
project provided a proof-of-principle that core concepts could be
identified in pharmacology.
This work generated a conversation within the international pharmacology
education community, including a session at the 2019 British
Pharmacological Society meeting in Edinburgh. A seminal workshop amidst
the pandemic in July 2021 set out some key objectives of the project:
This international project aims to transform pharmacology
education by developing core concepts, a concept inventory, and
education resources, to support students and educators in attaining the
foundational principles of pharmacology.
The workshop also tasked the first of many expert groups with a Delphi
study to identify “foundational pharmacology core concepts that
all students who have taken a pharmacology course should understand and
apply”.
To generate outcomes relevant across the global community, an
international Core Concepts of Pharmacology (CCP) project was formally
established in late 2021 under the banner of the IUPHAR-Ed
(coreconceptspharmacology.org). The IUPHAR-Ed CCP project is ambitious,
inclusive, and expansive. To date, over 300 educators from 23 countries
across six continents have contributed. A research team consisting of
10-15 expert educators was established to design and oversee the
project, and a series of expert groups were recruited to provide input
at each stage of the project. The project design consists of four major
outcomes; Core Concepts Development; Concept Inventory Development;
Concept Inventory Validation; and Education Resource Development, each
with sub-elements, as shown in Figure 1.