4 minute read
CLEAR's upcoming international congress: Global health and labour market challenges top of mind for Ireland
This year, on May 4 and 5, the Council on Licensure, Enforcement, and Regulation (CLEAR) will host its seventh International Congress on professional and occupational regulation.
To be held in Dublin, Ireland, regulators from around the world will examine and discuss the trends and issues of licensing and regulation from a global perspective. CLEAR Program Coordinator Virginia Shapland says that both days will focus primarily on engagement and collaboration.
“We see this [event] as a launchpad for regulators in the years to come,” Shapland said. “It gives them an opportunity to hear about what other regulatory stakeholders are engaged in, and provides roundtable opportunities to discuss how the sector is impacted by those same issues.”
Shapland says that the organization is pleased with how planning for the international event is progressing. Delegates from around the world have registered, including several from Canada, the US, and Australia.
CORU, the Irish health and social care regulatory authority, looks forward to welcoming its global colleagues to Dublin.
Margaret Hynds O’Flanagan, CORU’s Head of Recognition and Deputy Registrar and Chairperson of CLEAR’s International Relations Committee, acknowledges the importance of this meeting given the global pressures on healthcare. Portability of credentials, and the use of technology to reduce the burden of professionals becoming licensed in the sector, will be a big topic of discussion.
“The [International Relations] Committee will look at issues around mobility this year, with one of them being changes and trends,” she said. “Alongside the technology and the ethics on this [international recruitment], finding ways to support the professional in adjusting to their environment.”
Topical planning will be done by a number of CLEAR committees, who will conduct environmental scans to assess the most significant issues affecting each regulator’s jurisdiction. Hosting different regulators from various parts of the world allows regulatory colleagues to get a better sense of how to directly address consumer needs, she says.
Preceding the seventh International Congress on May 3 is CLEAR’s Regulatory Research Day, which will allow attendees to network and explore how academic information and research shape policy on an international scale. A keynote delivered by Cary Coglianese, founder of the highly-acclaimed Penn Program on Regulation, will also be on the docket.
Margaret Hynds O’Flanagan (she/her), Head of Recognition and Deputy Registrar, CORU
“We’re starting to see that you don’t have to start off of ground zero,” Shapland said. “You can build off of what researchers, and even non-regulators, have done. This collaborative aspect allows everyone to grow, and get out of their silos.”
Acknowledging the International Congress as part of the ongoing return to in-person learning, Shapland says that CLEAR has seen a sharp increase in direct engagement. It allows regulators to better focus on priority objectives, such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) access, which is necessary to make positive change more broadly.
Ireland, Hynds O’Flanagan says, is an example of how broader change can be made, for professionals who serve the public. Ireland’s equality legislation, she says, advanced rapidly in the final decades of the 20th century, and has significant ambitions and commitment to DEI.
Hynds O’Flanagan says that current action reinforces fairness and transparency.
“We now have a Human Rights and Equality Commission, and part of their legislation states that any public sector authority has a duty to protect and actively promote DEI,” she said. “It’s government mandated work, and we have to do it to ensure people’s rights are protected.”
More information can be found on CLEAR’s website (www.clearhq.org), with full program details being publicly available in February 2023.
