About us and our objectives

The Social and Administrative Pharmacy Section (SAPS) brings together FIP members from diverse practice settings and backgrounds. Our members work in a number of roles, including  government departments of health, pharmaceutical companies, professional societies, chain pharmacies, wholesalers or with private healthcare providers such as health maintenance organisations. Others work as researchers in social pharmacy, academic administrators or consultants in various fields of health care. Our uniting interest is the organisation of pharmacy practice and the provision of evidence for decision-making in all areas related to pharmacy policy and advocacy.

Collectively, SAPS members have special interest and expertise in the following areas:

• Qualitative and quantitative health services research
• Outcomes research – including economic, clinical and humanistic outcomes
• Instrument development and testing
• PROMS, PREMS and patient satisfaction
• Pharmacoeconomics – health economics
• Pharmacoepidemiology - epidemiology
• Quality improvement in health care
• Health and pharmaceutical policy development and investigations
• Research administration and clinical governance 
• Professional society management
• Professional standards and guidelines
• Evidence-based practice
• Health planning and promotion
• Regulatory affairs

We invite all new FIP members to take the opportunity to join SAPS, and current FIP members to choose SAPS as a second or third membership option. We would welcome your involvement in our section.

Who we are

Our Executive Committee currently consists of:

*Shortened term due to postponement of elections in 2020 due to Covid-19. 

The current statutes of the Social and Administrative Pharmacy Section were adopted by the Bureau on 22 April 2020.

FIP Social and Administrative Pharmacy Section (SAPS) Research Award 

The FIP SAPS Research Award was established in 2020 to help encourage research into areas of interest for SAPS.  Projects should be relevant to SAPS or to FIP more broadly. The uniting interest for SAPS is the organisation of pharmacy practice and the provision of evidence for decision-making in all areas related to pharmacy policy and advocacy.

SAPS has also built up special expertise in Pharmacoeconomics, Outcomes research, Research administration, Quality assurance, Pharmacoepidemiology, Quality-of-life studies, Epidemiology, Patient satisfaction, Professional society management, Evaluation research, Evidence-based practice, Health planning, Regulatory affairs and Health policy investigations.

SAPS offers a €1,500 annual award to cover costs for the selected project. Awardees must submit an invoice and paid receipt of expenses incurred to be reimbursed the €1500 research grant award.  

Applicants must be members in good standing of the SAPS Section of FIP. Individual members are permitted to submit multiple project applications (e.g. on behalf of students), but that individual may only be the holder of 1 successful award at any one time.

The call for applications for the SAPS Research Award 2024 is now open.

Application form for the Research Award may be found here.

Applications should be submitted to saps@fip.org  by 12:00pm CET 1^st May 2024.

Research Award winners

2020- Caterina Bernardo - “Exploring medication adherence in breast cancer patients shifted from IV to oral forms according to the ABC taxonomy”

2021- Certina Ho – “A Quality Improvement Community of Practice for Pharmacy Professionals”

2021- Nebojša Pavlović – “Overcoming barriers to the involvement of community pharmacists in smoking cessation programs in Serbia: time for action”

2022- Sylvester Adeyemi – “Community Pharmacist-Administered COVID-19 Vaccinations in Abuja, Nigeria: A Patient Survey on Satisfaction and Motivation to Get Vaccinated”

2023- Kaitlyn Watson – "An international portrait of pharmacists’ professional role identities: A Q-Methodology innovative study (The FIPP-Q Study)"

Activities

At the FIP congress

During the FIP congress, SAPS section participates and organises sessions  and social events for our pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences members, often in cooperation with other FIP sections or working groups. At the upcoming Seville 2022  congress SAPS is involved in the following sessions: :

• Listen better, talk better — Skills to improve medicines taking
• Individualised medicines: And ethical approach
• Gene-based therapy 101
• Healthy ageing
• Patient safety: How resilient are your services?
• Medicine shortages: The International Toronto Summit and beyond

Most years during the FIP congress, SAPS holds its annualbusiness meeting, where members can make contact, contribute thoughts, and influence the future development of the section.

Member Engagement

SAPS publishes our  section newsletter four times a year to keep members informed about SAPS activities between congresses.

SAPS also does shorter information mail outs, on topics or activities of interest to members.

SAPS also hosts regional meet-ups, where members from different regions can meet in a time convenient for them, and discuss the practice of pharmacy in their region, in their own language.

These meet-ups are facilitated by local members, and provide a forum for our members to discuss issues of concern or importance to them and their practice.

If any member would like to host such an event, please contact SAPS at saps@fip.org.

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Annual report 

The SAPS annual report is available here.

The minutes for the SAPS business meeting 2021 are available here.

 Last update 1 September 2022