Requirements for web conferencing at the European Medicines Agency

This article aims to give an overview of the implementation process of virtual meetings at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the challenges to meet changing requests of users. Demand for changes is triggered by the increasing importance of an efficient knowledge exchange, especially in Medical and Health Science, by environmental instabilities and by the changing technical infrastructure of the stakeholder's institutions involved in the communication. In order to address changing requests as best possible, it is necessary to determine requirement criteria and to outline specifications on a regular basis. At the same time it is important to observe constantly advancing technologies available on the market in order to ensure the best possible match between specific needs and available technical features as well as between costs of enhancing existing software versus investment in new applications and potential benefits. The experiences at EMA provide a clear example of some of the typical tasks to manage and decisions to be taken when implementing and updating software for virtual meetings.