What it is about
- a joint endeavour to co-design, co-create and implement solutions
- main tool to achieving the objectives of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Beating Cancer Plan and the EU Green Deal
Target groups
- Stakeholders along the whole cancer control continuum, from prevention of risk factors to survivor support and end-of-life care, for all ages and cancer types. This includes rare and poorly understood cancers, cancers in children, adolescents/young adults and the elderly, cancers in socially or economically vulnerable families and among people living in remote areas, across all Member States
- Citizens, civil society organisations, public authorities and policy-makers
- Academia, research and innovation players, and other relevant stakeholders
Focus areas
- Prevent what is preventable
- Optimise diagnostics and treatment
- Support quality of life
- Ensure equitable access to healthcare
Objective 1: Improve the understanding of cancer
Target: 500,000 cancer-healthy tissue paired samples available in the platform with complete clinical outcome data
- Establish the ‘UNCAN.eu’ platform by 2023 (2021-2023)
- Better understand healthy versus cancer cells at individual and population level (2021-2028)
- Better understand cancer-patient molecular, cell, organ, organismal interactions (2023-2029)
- Determine the role of genetics in cancer (2024-2030)
Objective 2.1: Prevention including screening and early detection (prevent what is preventable)
Target: At least five new health promotion and prevention strategies developed, which are tailored to the needs of vulnerable populations
- Develop a one-stop cancer information centre on prevention (2022-2025)
- Boost research and innovation into risk assessment (2024-2027)
- Conduct implementation research on cancer prevention (2022-2030)
- Establish synergies on prevention with other missions (2023-2026)
Objective 2.2: Screening and early detection
Target: At least five validated early detection methods ready to be included into screening programmes.
- Optimise and improve access to existing screening programmes (2024-2029)
- Develop new methods and technologies for screening and early detection (2021-2026)
- Develop early predictors/tests (2025-2030)
Objective 3: Optimise diagnostics and treatment
Expected outcomes: A clinical trial network throughout the EU-27 to support the sustainable conduct of academic trials.
Suggested targets include: 90% of eligible cancer patients have access to CCIs by 2030.
- Support the creation of a network of Comprehensive Cancer Infrastructures (CCIs) by 2025 (2021- 2025)
- Develop twinning programmes (2024-2028)
- Develop a clinical trial programme on diagnostics (2023-2027)
- Develop a clinical trial programme on treatments (2022-2023)
Objective 4: Support quality of life
Expected outcomes include:
- A better understanding of unmet needs of cancer patients, survivors and their families;
- Better supportive and end-of-life care and counselling, thereby reducing societal costs and achieving better quality of life with a focus on cancer patients, survivors and their families;
- Better access to supportive and end-of-life care and counselling services throughout the EU-27;
- Creation of innovative jobs and growth in the area of supportive care and counselling, including for food, sports, services, diagnostics, med-tech and pharmaceutical industries;
- One living lab set up in each Member State to discuss ‘quality of life with cancer’ metrics for regular surveys by 2030.
Suggested targets include:
- All Member States report on the QoL survey by 2023;
- Better supportive and end-of-life care and counselling, with reduced societal and financial costs, achieving better quality of life for at least 50% of cancer patients, survivors and their families throughout the EU-27 by 2030.
- Collect and analyse data on today’s unmet needs of cancer patients and survivors (2021-2025)
- Set up of the European Cancer Patient Digital Centre (2021-2023)
- Develop early predictors for quality of life (2024-2030)
- Design monitoring programmes for survivors of childhood cancer (2021-2027)
