This year, in 2024, the European Commission is launching a so-call Direct Grant to Member State Authorities (DG) with special focus on cancer registration and the European Cancer Information System (ECIS). Under the EU4Health programme, the Commission is reserving 13 million euros to co-finance a project “to support quality improvement of cancer registry data feeding the European Cancer Information System”. The objectives are twofold:
- To improve the quality and completeness of cancer registry data across Europe
- To improve its timeliness as well as its survival and prevalence indicators, if this data is fed into the ECIS.
The complete call text can be found here.
The Steering Committee of the ENCR considers this a major opportunity to work together and improve quality, timeliness and impact of cancer registries in Europe. With the support from the European Commission, cancer registries have the opportunity to improve and modernize their operations, connect to the European Health Data Space and increase their impact for patients and society.
I am interested. What should I do? This call is targeted to the member states’ authorities. The first step is to engage with your national competent health authority to signal your interest. Your national health authority is to decide if your country will be participating in the call. Your health authority will select a so-called competent authority, the organization in your country that will be partner in the Direct Grant. Besides identifying a Competent Authority, your country may nominate one or more Affiliated Entities. It should be demonstrated that there is a legal or financial relation between your health authority and your cancer registry. This relation may be indirect, for example via a regional health authority. If this relation has not been demonstrated to the European Commission prior to the nomination deadline, your organization will not be eligible.
We have multiple cancer registries in our country. How would that work? If your health authority decides to participate in the call, they can nominate an organization (competent authority) to participate as partner in the direct grant. Next to identifying one partner organization, member states can nominate multiple “affiliate organizations”. You can discuss with your health authority how your registry can be included in the DG.
What is expected from my organization? Once the participating organizations have been nominated, they are invited to jointly deliver a project plan for the Direct Grant. In this phase, the contributions of the participating cancer registries as well as the workplan and deliverables will be defined.
How is this call financed? The European Commission co-finances this call, covering at most 80% for personnel, material and other costs. The remaining costs will have to be covered by the entities nominated by the Member States.
We are already working on quality improvement at our cancer registry. Can we participate? Yes, this Direct Grant is an opportunity to accelerate the development of cancer registries and can support initiatives around artificial intelligence and data extraction, registration and linkage. As mentioned earlier, your organization needs to demonstrate a financial or organizational link with your national health authority – either direct or indirect.
What are the deadlines? The 2024 tentative call planning has been published, with indicative publication date 18.06.2024. After that, your health authority will have about 4 months to nominate a competent authority and possible affiliated entities. Make sure they are able to nominate your organization if you are interested. The indicative closing date is 10.10.2024.
After nominating, a phase is entered where a project proposal is created and reviewed. Around eighteen months after opening of the call, the project may start.
Is my country eligible? All EU countries as well as Norway, Iceland, Moldova, Montenegro and Ukraine are eligible for funding from the EU4Health program.
Who can I contact if I have questions? Please reach out to the Chairs of the ENCR Gijs Geleijnse and Liesbet Van Eycken or any other ENCR Steering Committee member.