Health Technology Assessments (HTAs) provide relevant information for numerous decisions in healthcare. The development of HTA reports requires well-trained, interdisciplinary specialists. The appropriate interpretation of their findings and their implementation in decisions requires understanding on the part of the decision-makers.

In 2006, HTA.de and the German Network for Evidence-based Medicine (Deutsches Netzwerk Evidenzbasierte Medizin e.V.) developed an HTA curriculum to serve as a basis for HTA training courses addressed to both users of HTA information and HTA authors. The curriculum informs training courses at several universities. Due to methodological developments and advances in the field, a revision of the curriculum became necessary.

The curriculum draws on the structure and content of internationally established academic programmes, but also takes into account the special features of technology regulation and decision-making in the health systems of German-speaking countries. It is subdivided into a total of 10 modules which, in addition to the basics and principles of HTA, deal with determining the status of technologies, priority setting, knowledge and information management, methodology for the compilation of HTA reports and conflicts of interest. Compared to the original version, several elements are presented more precisely and experience from courses that implement the curriculum has been taken into account.