The First National Scientific Meeting of the Social and Behavioral Science Research Network

Abstract

In November 2005, a small group of behavioral and social sciences investigators from the University of Pennsylvania and Emory University began planning for the establishment of a network between scientists involved in HIV prevention and treatment research. The purpose of this network was 3-fold. First, it was intended to foster multisite collaborations between behavioral and social scientists. Second, it was intended to share strategies on how behavioral and social scientists could be better partners with more basic and clinical scientists and how the basic and clinical sciences could be better used to inform behavioral and social science research. Finally, the Social and Behavioral Science Research Network (SBSRN) was explicitly intended to provide a forum for the exchange of the most recent information in the behavioral sciences regarding HIV/AIDS and to mentor the next generation of scientists engaged in social and behavioral science surrounding HIV prevention and treatment. By combining the intellectual capital and synergies among the community of scientists engaged in this work, it is hoped to invigorate state-of-the-art science in this area. In the National Institutes of Health (NIH) roadmap, the ‘‘research teams of the future’’ are described as problem-oriented multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams. We believe the SBSRN provides the foundation on which these teams can be built and directed toward HIV research.