The 15-month coordination and support action “4.UNCAN.eu” will generate a strategic agenda to launch UNCAN.eu, a European initiative to UNderstand CANcer proposed by the Mission Board and the European Beating Cancer Plan. The ultimate goal of this research agenda is to achieve a novel breakthrough in cancer prevention and treatment, which will help save the lives of European citizens and guarantee the best possible quality of life for those who have survived the disease.

Project description

UNCAN.eu will take advantage of recent advances in research data generation and data sciences. Reliable, high-quality cancer research data generated by experimental model analysis and collected from longitudinal follow-up of cancer patients will be shared and integrated at an unprecedented scale within a Federated Cancer Research data hub, in the context of the General Data Protection Regulation.

This information will be used by relevant players in Europe and beyond to address urgent and essential scientific and medical challenges in cancer prevention, early diagnosis, treatment and survivorship, in males and females of various ages. These challenges, identified in close interaction with European patients and citizens, will be tackled through competitive, ambitious and innovative, cross-border and trans-disciplinary research programs built in a problem-solving manner.

With the goal of enhancing the research capacity of Europe’s less developed regions, the definition of challenges will incorporate disparities in cancer research across member states and regions. The FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) guiding principles for scientific data collection, management, and stewardship will be upheld by players as they commit to open science. Other diseases will primarily benefit from the new knowledge that has been obtained through the gathering and examination of this massive amount of data.