Working parties and other groups

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has a number of working parties and related groups in place. They advise EMA's scientific committees on issues relating to their fields of expertise. EMA introduced areas of domain governance that oversee the work carried out by its working parties and related groups. 

Updated on 3 October 2025:
- to link to the new page on 'PRAC working parties and other groups'

The working parties and other groups provide advice on regulatory procedures that span the life-cycle of medicines. They also support the drafting of scientific guidelines.

Members of the working parties and other groups are selected, based on their expertise, from the list of European experts maintained by EMA. They come from national competent authorities or academic institutions in EU and EEA Member States. 

Working parties and other groups may also include representatives of patient, consumer or healthcare professional organisations, as appropriate

For more information, see: 

• European experts

In this section: EMA's working parties

• CHMP: Working parties and other groups
• CVMP: Working parties and other groups
• COMP: Working parties and other groups
• HMPC: Working parties and other groups
• CAT: Working parties and other groups
• PDCO: Working parties and other groups
• PRAC: Working parties and other groups

In this section:

EMA's other groups

• Emergency Task Force (ETF)
• EU Innovation Network (EU-IN)
• EudraVigilance Expert Working Group
• Healthcare Professionals' Working Party
• Medicine Shortages Single Point of Contact (SPOC) Working Party
• Medical Device Shortages Single Point of Contact (SPOC) Working Party
• Patients' and Consumers' Working Party (PCWP)

Other groups

• Coordination Group for Mutual Recognition and Decentralised Procedures - Human (CMDh)
• Coordination group for mutual recognition and decentralised procedures for veterinary medicinal products (CMDv)

Overview and domains

EMA revised the way its working parties are run and structured and introduced the concept of domain governance in 2022. This ensures oversight and coordination of the different domains.

EMA's working parties are organised into five domains.

• Quality domain
• Non-clinical domain
• Methodology domain
• Clinical domain
• Veterinary domain

The role of the domains is to:

• perform strategic, tactical, operational, reactive, educational and stakeholder activities;
• produce three-year rolling strategic plans based on the priorities of EMA and of the European medicines regulatory network.

Four types of scientific group operate within these domains.  

EMA's working parties are the main scientific groups advising EMA's scientific committees based on their expertise in specific scientific fields.

Three types of scientific group support the working parties: 

Group	Function
Operational expert groups (OEGs)	Advise on specific scientific topics and support domain-related operational activities, complementing working party expertise
Temporary drafting groups (tDGs)	Draft guidance documents
European specialised expert communities (ESECs)	Contribute to specific topics and provide expertise for the network, complementing domain-contained knowledge