10 The expert committees shall draw up and approve a report before the closing of a meeting or consultation, which will contain the conclusions of the expert committee meeting but not necessarily represent the position of WHO on the given subject.
20 The substance of the report is left entirely to the members. The report should be completed (including annexes) and approved by the members before the meeting closes. If they are not entirely unanimous in their findings, any divergent views should be recorded in or appended to the report. Only editorial changes may subsequently be made. The presentation of the report should be in conformity with the Guidance for editing manuscripts for publication in the WHO Technical Series and with the following paragraphs.
30 In accordance with Regulation 4.12 for Expert Advisory Panels and Committees, conclusions and recommendations should be formulated in such a way as to advise the Director-General on future programme activities without calling upon the Director-General to use WHO staff, services or funds in a specified way. Should the meeting wish to make more specific recommendations, they may be formulated separately in a memorandum addressed to the Director-General by all the members.
40 If the members of a committee or group of experts so desire, acknowledgements may be included at the end of the report of any special substantive technical contributions made by persons not included in the list of participants. Such acknowledgements should specify whether the contributions were in the form of participation in the discussions or in written form (e.g. background paper). They should be included only if they formed part of the report as approved by the members before the conclusion of the meeting. Financial contributions should also be acknowledged. (Guide on good practice on acknowledgements).
50 Dependent on the outcome of the evaluation of the DOIs as referred to in section IX.2.3 paragraph 230, significant or potentially significant declared interests of the experts and temporary advisers may need to be disclosed in a separate section of the report.
60 Paragraph 4.12 of the Regulations for Expert Advisory Panels and Committees states: "Signed contributions may not be included in the text of the committee's report or in its annexes." Consequently, if an expert committee wishes to annex to its report a method, procedure, or other detailed statement prepared by one of its members, the annex should not be signed. When reference is made to the annex in the body of the report, it is permissible, however, to give credit to the author, at the same time explaining that the committee has approved the inclusion of the annex.
70 By extension, the same rule applies, in general, to reports of other expert groups, but the director concerned may authorize exceptions if this seems justified. Apart from these exceptions, opening speeches, addresses of welcome and working papers should not be included as annexes.
80 Previously published material should not normally be reproduced in the Report, however any published documents consulted by the expert committee should be appropriately cited and included in a list of references. If the reproduction of previously published material is considered essential by the committee and approved by the director concerned, then permission should be sought from the copyright holder (see Specimen letter for requesting permission to reproduce copyright material) and the source should be indicated and included in the reference list.
90 All annexes should be referred to in the body of the report, with an indication of the reasons for their inclusion.
100 Editing of the reports of expert committees, study groups and scientific groups should be in accordance with WHO editing standards (including consistency with WHO house style) and the guidance on editing manuscripts for publication in the WHO Technical Report Series.
110 The reports of expert committees, study groups and scientific groups should, whenever possible, be translated into other official languages.
120 Arrangements for the editing, translation and printing or reproduction of reports of joint meetings of experts are agreed upon before the meeting by the publishing services of the organizations concerned; for this purpose, the WHO joint secretary should consult WHO Press (QNS/WHP) at the time of the preliminary planning of the meeting.
130 The approval of the WHO assistant director-general concerned to publish the report or reproduce it as a document must be obtained in the normal way (see below). Members of expert advisory panels representing WHO at such joint meetings are also expected to report separately to WHO on their participation.
140 After editing has been completed and before the report is laid out, it should be submitted for executive clearance through the director and assistant director-general concerned.
150 Once executive clearance has been obtained, the report may be sent for layout. As soon as the second proof of the report has been cleared for publication:
- the recommendations of the expert committee or study group shall be provided to QNS for inclusion in the Director-General's report to the Executive Board, and
- the recommendations, or any sections of the report that are of particular importance, of the expert committee, study group or scientific group may be placed by the responsible technical units on the WHO web site, provided that they appear with a disclaimer clearly indicating that the posted information is provisional and that the final version will be published in the Technical Report Series at a later stage.
160 If it is the report of an expert committee or study group, the Secretary also prepares a memorandum addressed to QNS describing the meeting and attaching a complete set of working papers. The purpose of this is to enable the Director-General to submit to the Executive Board a document on the action to be taken as required by Regulation 4.23 for Expert Advisory Panels and Committees, which also applies to study groups.
170 The memorandum should be set out under the following headings: I. Background information (origin, scope and purpose of meeting and its relationship to previous meetings on the same or an allied subject); II. The Report (very brief summary of its main points); III. The Recommendations (main recommendations made by the committee or group); IV. The Implications for the Organization's Programme (whether any action as a result of the recommendations has been taken or is proposed).
180 The report of the expert committee or study group should be published in print and on the WHO web site.
190 In addition, documents that are prepared by external authors and submitted to WHO expert advisory groups and committees as a basis for the development of recommendations may be made publicly accessible on the WHO web site for reasons of transparency (see Regulations for expert advisory panels and committees, paragraph 4.15).
200 Documents that have already been published by an external publisher which are used as working documents may be subject to copyright restrictions and consequently cannot be made publicly accessible on the WHO web site. In most cases, a link to the abstract or article (if available) on the publisher's site should be sufficient.
210 If an unpublished working paper submitted to an expert committee or study group is subsequently published in an external journal, this may cause a conflict with the publication by WHO of the final report or of the document itself, because the external journal article may be substantially the same as the report that WHO intends to publish. Authors should seek authorisation from the Director-General before submitting their article to a journal.
