Starting and running a local group of medical writers
Local writers’ groups provide regular contact, practical support and opportunities to share work between larger professional events. A simple meeting can start a group, while continued activity depends on organisers and participants making time for it.
Purpose and participation
Freelancers can feel socially isolated despite online contact, and colleagues met at annual or twice-yearly conferences may not meet face to face again until the next event. Local gatherings let writers share experience, practical advice and moral support with people who understand their work.
In 2016, informal UK groups were not necessarily owned by a professional association, were open to all medical freelancers and involved no membership or event fees or major transport costs. They complemented larger associations and adapted meetings to local needs, often allowing useful conversation without a structured programme. Organisers need not wait for a large attendance: one north-west London meeting of three people still supported a useful conversation.
Including employees as well as freelancers can widen the group’s connections and opportunities. Berlin and Brandenburg’s group, first meeting on 14 July 2016, broadened its stated scope from a freelance gathering to a general writers’ gathering because both employees and freelancers attended and wanted to build reliable professional relationships.
Starting and sustaining meetings
Two UK freelancers began informal regional meetings towards the end of 2014 and publicised them through MedComms Networking on LinkedIn. One first meeting needed only a pub, a date and an announcement and drew seven people, including five freelance writers and editors from Kent and a London copywriter; prepared topics proved unnecessary once introductions started the conversation. By late 2016, groups had appeared in Kent, Cheshire, north-west London, Cambridge and East Anglia, Leeds, north Wales, Brighton, central Scotland and north-east England.
Eight practical tips offered to organisers in 2016 were:
- Choose a convenient date; try to avoid summer holidays, the period close to Christmas and major freelance or industry events.
- Find an accessible pub or restaurant near public transport and low-cost or free parking.
- Post details on a personal LinkedIn page, invite interested freelancers to make contact there and ask MedComms Networking to publicise the event.
- Invite local medical freelancers, including association members and non-members, writers, editors, project managers, directors, translators and consultants.
- Give at least four to six weeks’ notice and send frequent email and LinkedIn reminders.
- Introduce the organiser at the meeting, keep networking informal and let participants choose whether to eat or drink.
- Consider a Doodle poll to find a convenient date and time for the next gathering.
- Try three or four meetings a year, depending on availability.
In 2016, most of the informal groups met about three times a year and announced meetings four to six weeks ahead. Formats differed, with no fixed rules; one organiser found the differing approaches successful and worthwhile. A 2023 community organiser’s experience was that some groups endured and many did not, requiring perseverance and some luck.
Venue and timing choices
In Cambridgeshire and East Anglia in 2016, a geographically dispersed group alternated between two central towns and varied weekdays and times. It usually chose a pub likely to have room without booking and left food choices to individuals, but booked a Christmas meal that strengthened the small group’s bond.
Cheshire’s group used a pub-restaurant at a motorway junction, aiming for quarterly meetings around 8 pm; an identifying sign helped at the first event and later restaurant bookings let arrivals ask staff where the group sat. About three-quarters ate there, while lunchtime meetings attracted little enthusiasm. Leeds chose lunch because participants travelled some distance and evenings conflicted with family commitments; a restaurant voucher reduced everyone’s meal cost. Brighton and Hove chose a pub with good transport and parking, using a member’s LinkedIn photograph for recognition.
Support, work and social contact
At a Leeds lunch, a freelancer falling behind passed work to another attendee she had not previously met. North-west London members recommended website designers and accountants and later shared potential projects as relationships developed. Its early meetings included writers, an editor and a project manager, and an employed writer considering freelancing attended to learn about it firsthand.
Berlin and Brandenburg’s organisers gained contacts both within their organising team and among invited colleagues, including people asking to join future meetings when unable to attend the first. Knowing colleagues personally led to referrals when someone could not accept a project, and participants discussed sharing and creating more business opportunities. Experienced writers shared approaches to projects and contractors, helped newcomers and suggested future educational topics.
The Berlin group also provided informal conversation about wine, food, local history and routes into medical writing, and reunited former colleagues; it developed a LinkedIn group and periodic meetings. By 2019, members shared writing and freelance advice, referrals, placement contacts and requests from former clients after moving into employment. LinkedIn discussions and face-to-face meetings supported entrants and training enquiries, with discussion of regulations, costly journal and database access, business opportunities and EMWA membership. Social conversation and talks on wine science or Berlin history offered a break from demanding work, particularly for home-based members. The group aimed to meet quarterly.
By 2023, a UK group that began among friends and expanded by word of mouth had remained active through pandemic lockdowns, sometimes inviting speakers. Yorkshire’s group included employees and freelancers and combined friendships, support with family–work balance, recommendations and work passed between members.
Other group models
Social media can help locate a nearby gathering, and writers unable to find one can consider starting their own.
Paris writers began meeting in June 2016 after an EMWA conference and met roughly quarterly. By 2017, the initially mostly English-speaking group had become bilingual, with around sixty writers, editors, translators and scientists and about twenty attending each meeting. It aimed to support medical writing and French research publication, with official recognition of medical writing in France its first proposed project.
The Netherlands SciMed Writers Network began when conference contacts arranged an Amsterdam café gathering attended by fourteen people and recruited another organiser. Its first live workshop, on science storytelling, took place at an Amsterdam public library in October 2018 after promotion through LinkedIn and Facebook; the Facebook group already had nearly sixty members. Participants practised theatre improvisation to think about audience connection, heard writing tips and networked over coffee. A participant found the structured but informal setting less intimidating and valued the mix of new graduates, experienced writers, freelancers and local-company employees. Online groups shared job opportunities and expert advice, while organisers sought skill-sharing and professional contact rather than profit. Polls guided future topics, including a planned career workshop after an informal January gathering. A 2019 career event attracted fifteen writers and young scientists, with a career talk and a six-writer panel. By 2023, the Scientific and Medical Writers Network served Benelux through in-person and online networking and skill-sharing, with over a hundred members and online events open beyond the region; members shared jobs, best practices, tools and tips.
The Swiss Medical Writers and Communicators Group’s first in-person meeting, in Bern on 21 August 2021, attracted twelve people, including three freelancers and four exploring entry into the field. Most attendees were EMWA members, with non-members also present and women slightly outnumbering men. Participants’ interests covered medical communications, editing, pharmacovigilance, regulatory work and consultancy, with four working entirely in medical devices. By June 2023, its private LinkedIn group had seventy-three members, was free to join by invitation or request, permitted questions and shared items, and was arranging further Swiss meetings after two successful in-person gatherings.
Companies can also host local networking: a Berlin medical-communications company’s open event in March 2017 combined informal contact with an EMWA introduction and talks about education, medical translation and medical-device career opportunities.
Association encouragement
EMWA’s Freelance Business Forum promoted informal local meetings at its spring 2016 conference, with activity already established in the UK and emerging in France and Germany. Its hosts publicised them on LinkedIn and discussed them at the Munich and Brussels forums that year. Berlin organisers responded by creating low-cost, low-travel contact for freelancers and people interested in entering the profession.
By June 2025, EMWA’s local groups in Italy and Poland supported regional members and recruited new ones. In 2024, eight additional EMWA regional networking hubs attracted 243 attendees. In a post-event survey, networking was the main motivation, 50% were existing members and 13% of non-members said they were very likely to join.
In-person and online meetings
In 2023, north-west London’s evening meetings ran every three or four months in changing local or regional pubs and restaurants, with some members travelling in. Members felt they mixed more personally and professionally in small in-person groups than in large or online ones.
First Thursday, an informal group of AMWA members in south-eastern Florida, began monthly restaurant gatherings in December 2016, sharing ideas, finding project partners and building friendships. In 2020, the pandemic caused its first cancellation in April, followed by a May virtual meeting with more replies than any in-person event earlier that year. Members checked on one another and agreed to continue monthly online meetings for the pandemic’s duration. They reported that organising meetings and supporting each other increased activity and productivity, generated project collaborations and reduced isolation.
The group found newcomers had more difficulty getting to know regulars online and began a short-biography directory to help introductions. Virtual meetings removed travel and restaurant-booking work, permitted a later start, attracted participants from farther away and enabled structured discussions that restaurant noise and limited audiovisual facilities had hindered. Activities included discussions of a pandemic e-book, self-publishing and obstacles to writing, and a distant guest’s account of writing a family memoir and organising books and blogs.
First Thursday’s organisers aimed to retain its collegial, relaxed identity while extending its reach, and hoped to combine virtual and in-person meetings after the pandemic.