Let me give you a little background,
@NelliePledge,
The idea should make sense but the history is against us.
IiME separated themselves from other groups because they were not prepared to associate with the BPS group. I have a lot of respect for that position. However, I think IiME's reason was that they did not want to be associated with psychiatric research, rather than with bad research. I would have no problem with psychiatric research if it was well founded. For me the reason not to associate with BPS is that it is bad science.
Anyway, we have ended up with a complete polarisation and separation of IiME and CMRC (including AfME and MEA). Around 2014 IiME seemed to be doing well by being more selective about who they invited to their colloquium and generating a genuine sense of research community. I tried to advise on refining that further but my suggestions were not taken up. More recently my impression has been that the mix of scientists has been much less consistent and there has been fragmentation. Indeed IiME's webpage talked of such fragmentation. There seems now to be virtually no interaction between USA and Europe and at the last meeting hardly any UK groups were present.
The basic problem as I perceive it is that IiME, having no expertise of their own in science, tend to bring together people working on projects that sound good to them, without any real understanding of the competence of the scientists involved. That is of no use to us if we want to find the best way forward. Projects may sound great to lay people but be based on nothing of any substance.
I have not been to CMRC since 2014 and it may be that it is doing better in bringing UK scientists together. However, I am not over impressed by what I have heard.
One point I might interject here is that at the Parliamentary debate at least two MPs made a comment about US research being better than here. I do not see that. A lot of the stuff going on in the US looks unlikely to be productive to me. There are a lot of prima donnas but maybe not much more. And in this regard the CMRC looks to be almost as unselective as IiME. The people who have done really useful work in ME tend hardly ever to get mentioned.
So I agree that we seem to need a melting pot forum, but I am not sure either iiME or CMRC are able to deliver. I don't actually think this should be a big summit or have anyone high profile involved. Good scientific meetings tend to be workshops held in some quiet backwater place where people can get on with the work without anyone making great speeches.