LAW, POLICY AND ETHICS (LPE) CORE The LPE Core recognizes that HIV/AIDS research can provide important evidence for policy and legal change, even if it is conducted for the express purpose of doing so, and that laws, policies, and other social structures are a part of the context that influences individual risk-taking, and hence changes in them can be an important intervention strategy. It also recognizes that HIV/AIDS prevention research raises numerous ethical issues that must be examined and addressed in the pursuit of sound science. As such, the Core's purposes are to facilitate the development of new and support ongoing interdisciplinary research with a policy, structural, legal or ethics focus; ensure all CIRA affiliated research is conducted in accordance with the highest ethical and legal standards; and both advise CIRA scientists about developments in HIV-related policy and law, and their research implications, and ensure the translation and dissemination of CIRA's research findings generally and to policymakers. In support of new and existing policy, structural, legal and ethics research, the Core will organize working groups on Core-related topics; convene mini-conferences (small working conferences to identify research gaps in an area and encourage new research collaborations to fill those gaps); prepare Policy Updates, relatively brief critical analyses of newly emerging legal, policy, or ethical issues that are of significance for CIRA research; and convene monthly meetings and annual International Ethics Research Workshops. To ensure that CIRA science achieves the highest legal and ethical standards, the Core will run a consultation program, providing required consultations both prior to the submission of grants and after their award, as well as investigator-initiated consultations at any point in the research process; participate in peer review and in monthly meetings of the Human Investigations Committee at Yale; and prepare policies and resources relating to the conduct of research with human subjects. Dissemination and translation activities will include policy monitoring (to stay current on areas of policy concern), distribution of Core materials to policymakers, and participation in the planning of the YACS@CIRA seminar series. We expect these activities to lead to a growth in CIRA science and related publications focused on legal, policy, structural, and ethics issues.