The Medical Schools Council receives frequent requests from stakeholders to distribute surveys, questionnaires and curricula updates to medical schools and medical students. The Education Leads Advisory Group (ELAG), which includes experts in medical education, curricula design and implementation, is responsible to reviewing these requests.
The Advisory group is accountable to the Education Leads group and meets three times per year. The group works with stakeholders such as the Royal Colleges who would like to implement changes in curricula to understand the current practices, and shape these changes so that they are necessary, practical, and achievable. They also work with the General Medical Council on developments in medical education and curricula that may need to be reflected in Outcomes for Graduates.
All enquiries to the Education Leads Advisory Group should be directed to admin[at]medschools.ac.uk.
Review process for research projects
ELAG reviews applications once per month. From January – July 2024, 94% of applications to ELAG were accepted or accepted pending revisions.
Researchers should keep in mind that, due to the volume of applications, it may take 6-8 weeks to review applications. Researchers will be kept informed with the progress of their application. In extraordinary circumstances, applications may be expedited. Any deadlines should be highlighted when an application is submitted.
Potential outcomes:
- ELAG supports distribution of the survey or questionnaire. Researchers will be informed of this outcome and, following confirmation, this will be distributed to education leads without changes.
- ELAG provisionally supports distribution of the survey or questionnaire subject to changes/ethics approval. Researchers will be provided with feedback on any changes required, and following approval of these by ELAG the survey will be distributed.
- ELAG does not support distribution of the survey or questionnaire. The group does not feel that the research is appropriate in its current format for distribution to education leads by MSC. Researchers can appeal this decision but must provide a narrative to support this with any changes made.
Please note that, should an application be successful, the survey or questionnaire will be distributed to the education leads for each UK medical school, but it will only be cascaded to the relevant group (e.g. students) at their discretion. In general, local education leads will not circulate surveys which are not approved by ELAG. Due to the volume of requests, MSC is unable to send survey reminders.