Allocation of sponsorship

CMEPEDIA allocates sponsorship fairly, automatically, and transparently.

We offer free learning to our learners. There may still be potential costs associated with using our services, including paid content and the yearly subscription required for premium users to maintain a portfolio for re-licensing. Some institutes might have an allocation for education and fund the paid content for their users. In India, there is an option for a tax refund on personal development expenses. For learners in a lower income bracket, this is still too much of a stretch: they cannot afford to spend monthly on education to reclaim this yearly. Therefore, we create an opportunity to solicit sponsorship for these services.

Paid content is accessible for free.

Sponsorship for paid content is initially allocated to users who have added items to their wish lists. This ensures that support is given to those most interested in specific courses and avoids allocating resources for content that users do not choose.

Fair distribution of sponsorship

The distribution of sponsorship is done by an algorithm that ensures fairness. The system selects the cheapest course first on the wish list to maximise the number of healthcare professionals who benefit. Each user is granted sponsorship for one course before becoming eligible for another. After all wishlist-based requests are fulfilled, we extend sponsorship to healthcare professionals whose interests align with available course topics and who still have outstanding re-licensing requirements. In both groups—those with courses on their wishlist and those whose interests match remaining content—priority is first given to those in low-resource settings, followed by those in higher-resource settings.

No CMEPEDIA employee can manually influence this process. The allocation is entirely automated to prevent bias.

To benefit from CMEPEDIA sponsorship, we recommend that users create or update their wishlists on the CMEPEDIA platform. If they receive a sponsored course, we encourage them to begin studying it within one month to retain their allocation. If they don’t, the course will be allocated to another user. They will be notified to avoid missing any sponsorship opportunities. We give them the chance to reject courses that are irrelevant or duplicates to their learning or re-licensing goals, so that they can be reassigned to someone else.

Sponsoring of premium subscriptions

The funds generated from premium subscriptions make CMEPEDIA financially viable. Sponsorship for premium subscriptions follows the same logic as for paid course content. Priority goes to users who have added the premium subscription to their wishlist. Among these users, preference is again given to those in low-budget healthcare settings. This approach ensures that premium subscriptions are made available to those who are both interested and in greatest need.

Transparency and privacy

CMEPEDIA never shares your personal details with sponsors. To comply with the requirements of accrediting bodies, sponsorship data are aggregated and presented in group form, never at the individual level. Sponsors receive an invoice detailing how and where their funds were allocated only after the payment is made, to avoid introducing any selection bias.

Users set their sponsor preferences in their profile to allow them to reject, for example, sponsoring by ineligible companies .

We disclose to learners the names of sponsoring companies and the nature of the sponsorship, as per accreditation guidelines.