Launched in 2021, this ambitious project aims to transform pharmacology education by helping students and educators to focus on the knowledge that matters.
The Core Concepts of Pharmacology Education Project
A project of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology Education Section (IUPHAR-ED)
Why core concepts?
Pharmacology students around the world struggle with content overload and often have reduced curricular time devoted to pharmacology
A focus on core concepts helps students develop pharmacology knowledge structures – deep applied understanding of the foundational, enduring, useful, complex and challenging ideas that underpin how medicines work
Educators around the world are now using the core concepts as anchors for their pharmacology curricula – working to ensure that graduates retain the ability to apply these concepts years after their graduation
See below for some publications that articulate the project rationale and aims
First, we identified, defined and unpacked the 24 core core concepts that all students who have studied pharmacology should remember, understand and apply
- An Australasian team developed the initial methodology
- Our IUPHAR-Ed research team then involved educators from 17 countries across six continents to identify 25 initial core concepts (later refined to 24) – we published this in one of the most widely read articles in the British Journal of Pharmacology in 2025
- We then conducted a second study to develop definitions of each core concept extract sub-concepts created concept maps that explicitly show relationships between concepts within concept families. This was also one of the most read articles in the BJP that year
- These two BJP papers have been collectively cited 90 times
Then we studied student understanding and misconceptions of our core concepts
Next we designed studies that asked students to explain what each core concept meant to them and then asked them to apply the concept in a simple novel scenario. We have analysed responses from over 1000 students so far for 16 of the 24 concepts.
We published two papers in 2025 that show the outcomes of those analyses for Pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) concepts
In parallel, Adeladlew Netere worked with many pharmacology educators to develop a pharmacology concept inventory (PCI) that tests student understanding of our core concepts
First, Addie and the team gathered 200 multiple choice questions that assessed one or more of our core concepts
Then, the group focused on developing questions assessing eight of the core concepts – using a range of strict quality critieria
The International Core Concepts of Pharmacology Education Project is endorsed and adopted by IUPHAR education section. This website is administered by Monash University Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
© International Core Concepts of Pharmacology Education Project 2022
Core Concepts of Pharmacology 