// September 08, 2015

How to Get Involved with USP

Get Involved with USP
Contributors:

The United States Pharmacopeial Convention relies on the scientific community’s volunteer spirit and collaborative passion to provide trusted public standards for medicines, food ingredients, and dietary supplements.

From eleven physicians voluntarily convening in 1820 to improve American drug quality to the global reach we have today, USP proudly remains dependent upon experts from numerous scientific disciplines generously giving their time to help ensure that good-quality medicines reach patients domestically and internationally.

If you are interested in USP’s processes, want to play a role in setting standards used around the world, and possess a desire to apply your expertise to improving global public health, here are some ways to get involved:

Shaping the next 200 years: Expert Committees and Expert Panels

USP Expert Committees bring together professionals from academia, the pharmaceutical, herbal medicines, and dietary supplements industries, health care, government agencies, the veterinary sciences, and retail pharmacies. These volunteers develop and revise monographs and general chapters appearing in the USP-NF, the Food Chemicals Codex, The Dietary Supplements Compendium, and the nonproprietary drug names and chemical structures appearing in the USP Dictionary of United States Adopted Names (USAN).

Expert Panels are ad hoc groups formed to support Expert Committee work when additional expertise and insight are necessary, and play a critical role in advancing Expert Committee objectives.

USP currently has twenty-four Expert Committees. You may view their work plans, meeting schedules, focus areas, Expert Panels and subcommittees, and assigned monographs and general chapters here.

USP Expert Committees operate on five-year cycles—the current one runs from 2015 to 2020, our 200th anniversary as a standards-setting organization.

If you are a student of pharmacy, chemistry, biology, food science, or a related field--or a working professional in any of these disciplines--you may want to consider applying to serve on one of our Expert Committees when our next Call for Candidates begins in 2018. In the meantime, interested individuals may observe Expert Committee and Expert Panel meetings to learn more about USP’s standards-setting activities. Review our  upcoming meetings and complete this form requesting observer status.

Throughout the current cycle, occasional calls for Expert Panel members will be issued. You may stay up to date on these requests by signing up for one or more of our Compendial Updates e-newsletters.

Participate in our Donor Recognition Program (DRP)

USP relies not only on volunteers lending time and expertise, but also on donated proposed new and modernized documentary standards and candidate bulk materials. These donations help to ensure our monographs reflect a commitment to good quality and permit us to develop USP Reference Standards (also known as physical standards).

If proposed new and modernized documentary standards and candidate bulk materials submitted reach certain milestones, you become eligible for annual recognitions that may include complimentary print or online subscriptions to our compendia, complimentary reference standards, complimentary workshops or USP Education courses, or USP Verification Services incentives, among other items.

To learn more about the DRP, and to start the donation process, visit our DRP page. You may also review our participation incentives here. If you are ready to become a donor, stop by our Donor Submission Portal to request an account.