The first national scientific meeting of the Social and Behavioral Science Research Network.

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. The SBSRN planning meeting was held in Atlanta, March 27–28, 2006. The meeting was hosted by the Emory University Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and jointly supported by the University of Pennsylvania and Emory University CFARs. Representatives from 14 CFARs attended this 2-day meeting that focused on the development of consensus on the importance of the SBSRN and its mission. The following mission statement was adopted: ‘‘To articulate a national research agenda for the Social and Behavioral Science Research Network across CFARs and to stimulate cross-CFAR sharing of resources and future collaborative research.’’ This meeting also established the network’s research priorities and the development of an outline of the structure of the first national scientific meeting of the SBSRN. An Executive Committee was elected (Dr. DiClemente and Dr. Wingood from the Emory University CFAR and Dr. Metzger and Dr. Blank from the University of Pennsylvania CFAR) and given the responsibility to begin planning for a larger national meeting of the SBSRN. It was agreed that this first national scientific meeting of the SBSRN would be held in Philadelphia in the fall of 2006. The group also identified a number of potential shared resources that could be developed to support the efforts of individual CFAR cores and investigators. These included Web-based tools useful in the preparation of interdisciplinary research applications, a common database for tracking service delivery in social and behavioral sciences, a national directory, and a crossCFAR list-serve to speed communication and enhance collaborations. The group thought that the value added by the SBSRN to each CFAR had the potential to encourage all sites to include support for this effort in their respective competitive renewal applications and that