THE ORGANISATION

The OA Trial Bank was initiated in 2012 by Prof. Bierma-Zeinstra at Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam. A chairman, steering committee and an executive coordinator formalize the OA Trial Bank organisation.

The steering committee guarantees continuity of the OA Trial Bank, supervises the executive coordinator and approves and agrees on all decisions made and methods applied, i.e. agree on organisational structure and tasks of all parties involved; agree on the design and methods of meta-analyses, definition of subgroups, statistical analyses, provides the content of the license agreement (data access, transfer and storage, predefined analyses, confidentiality and reliability statement, authorship) between data-deliverers and the OA Trial Bank and ensures handling of data and provides a safe data storage.

The steering committee currently consists of six internationally acknowledged clinical and epidemiological researchers in the OA field, including a delegate of the OsteoArthritis Research Society International (OARSI) and a delegate of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR). The advisory board is an informal board that gives expert advice to the steering committee on emerging issues within the OA Trial Bank. The executive coordinator is responsible for the daily management of the OA Trial Bank, and performs or supervises the data-analyses.