This position paper is the result of a collaborative approach of several European Specialty Accreditation Boards (ESABs) and, has been stimulated by their current experience in accreditation regarding roles and responsibilities assumed by sponsors of accredited continuing medical education (CME). The suggestions made in this paper aim to preserve the fundamental principle in CME accreditation that the physician in charge of the programme has sole responsibility for the selection of topics, speakers, content and format, as well as mode of presentation, and that sponsors will under no circumstances interfere with this principle. This is considered as a responsibility of an individual physician (or physicians), which cannot be delegated, even in part, to third parties. This responsibility has been extended to include all communication before and after the event. The paper also identifies undecided issues, about which ESABs are committed to elaborate proposals in the future.
Keywords: European Specialty Accreditation Boards; independent CME; information material; medical education company; professional congress organiser (PCO); sponsoring; transparency.