Table 1 The roles in the consensus conference

Organizing committee

It was responsible for:

 Setting the goals of the conference;

 Finding funds;

 Choosing components of the Technical-Scientific Committee (TSC);

 Drafting the protocol with the TSC;

 Disseminating news about the conference;

 Choosing components of the Panel Jury;

 Defining, in concordance with the Technical-Scientific Committee, the questions for the Panel Jury;

 Offering methodological support to the Experts for the drafting of the reports to send to the Panel Jury;

 Choosing the measuring methods of the impact of the recommendations produced

Technical-scientific committee

It involved members with scientific know how and representativeness and was responsible for:

 Cooperating with the organizing committee in the drafting of the consensus conference document;

 Defining the questions for the Panel Jury, in concordance with the Organizing Committee;

 Choosing internally its Experts and the work groups necessary to draft and present to the Jury the reports concerning the recommendations about the different questions during the conference;

 Offering methodological support to the Experts and the work groups

Panel jury

It was meant to:

 Draft a regulation of discussion in which the procedures that the Jury will apply were described,

 Evaluate and review the documents drafted from the work groups;

 Attend the meetings for discussion of the reports of the Consensus Conference;

 Discuss, review and approve the preliminary consensus document;

 Review and approve the final consensus document respecting the procedure given in the regulation

President of the jury

It had the authority to:

 Draft the regulation document and get the Jury’s members’ approval;

 Guarantee that all the Jury members receive the materials drafted by the experts and work groups by the right time;

 Coordinate the Jury and the Writing Committee during the process towards the final consensus document;

 Manage the Jury’s discussions;

 Manage the relationships with the Organization Committee and act as a medium of communication directed to the Jury;

 Attend the celebration of the Consensus Conference;

 Communicate publicly, at the end of the discussion of the Jury, the recommendations written in the final preliminary consensus document

Writing committee

Composed by members extracted from the Jury, this Committee embodies the multidisciplinary of the Panel, check and gives to the newsroom the final consensus document, following the rules agreed and subscribed in the Jury regulation

Scientific secretariat

It manages the exchange of materials and documents and information among the components and the groups of the consensus

Organizational secretariat

It manages the operative organization of the conference

Members of the expert meetings

Reviews and summarizes the evidence of the scientific literature related to the questions of the Consensus Conference. Particularly:

Drafts a summary of the scientific evidence available;

Drafts a summary of the information available to the public that comes from different sources, concerning the themes of the conference;

Sends the reports made to the Jury by the agreed deadline;

Presents the data collected during the celebration of the conference and participates to the discussion