28 October 2021

Euro-NMD is co-developing together with EATRIS (The European Infrastructure for translational medicine) a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Translational Research, which is part of a series of five. MOOCs on transversal and multidisciplinary aspects of rare diseases research that will compose the online academic education course being developed by the European Joint Programme on Rare Diseases (EJP RD) and coordinated by the French Foundation for Rare Diseases. The objective is twofold:  to better inform and train the rare disease community on transversal research topics as well as to increase awareness and interest on rare diseases research from students. A first MOOC addressing research issues related to diagnosis in the rare diseases context was launched on April this year.

It counted with 1800 learners from 117 countries (40% outside Europe), and has received a 91.5% positive feedback. A second round of this MOOC on diagnosis is currently available here: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/rare-genetic-disease.

The structure of the MOOC on Translational Research has been based on the popular “Summer School” developed for researchers and clinicians by Euro-NMD in association with TREAT-NMD. It will run over 5 weeks (2 to 3 hours session each week) and, as with the other MOOCs of the series, it will be 100% online and open to anyone with no admission process. The expectation is to have it launched on March next year, and we specifically encourage medical and biomedical science students to register and follow this MOOC.