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EUSTIR<br />
A European strategy for the integration<br />
of research on breast cancer<br />
Summary<br />
Keywords | Breast cancer | funding | harmonisation |<br />
The overall objective is to create a permanent European<br />
overview process for the award, audit and recording of all<br />
research on breast cancer.<br />
The project aims to create:<br />
• a European overview process for project proposals<br />
received by all funding bodies. This will:<br />
• prevent research from being funded for similar work<br />
in multiple projects;<br />
• result in a few large, rather than multiple small series,<br />
which are much more likely to yield defi nite results;<br />
• a body of the leading researchers in breast cancer which<br />
agree the areas most likely to give results of clinical relevance<br />
and agree certain issues that must be included in<br />
all proposals (such as validation of the results);<br />
• an audit process of research work. This addresses the<br />
problem that many projects do not address their aims.<br />
The audit outcomes will be accessible to research funders,<br />
so that institutes most likely to complete valuable projects<br />
are identifi ed (and the converse!).<br />
This project will be divided into three parts:<br />
• a workshop of leading European research workers in<br />
breast cancer to defi ne the most important areas for<br />
research and to make suggestions on an overview<br />
process;<br />
• a workshop of the funding organisations and other<br />
interested parties to discuss and agree a strategy for<br />
harmonising research in the identifi ed areas;<br />
• validation of projects funded to date against criteria<br />
established within the project.<br />
Problem<br />
The present methods of awarding research grants in cancer<br />
suff er from many defects and appear to result in repetitive<br />
research, often with no clear result and no clinical relevance.<br />
There is no agreement as to which areas are the most important,<br />
there is no attempt to ensure claims are validated, there<br />
is no audit process for success/failure and no ranking of ability<br />
of individual units to complete projects and their value.<br />
This means that monies for research are often spent poorly.<br />
Aim<br />
1. Long-term aims<br />
• To harmonise breast cancer research through individual<br />
funding organisations operating within Europe.<br />
• To encourage research to be focused on that which will<br />
have ultimate clinical application.<br />
• To ensure that validation is a part of the design of all<br />
applications.<br />
• To establish an audit system backed by a database that<br />
allows assessment of the success rate of individual<br />
research groups.<br />
2. Project-specifi c aims<br />
• To bring together all organisations involved in developing,<br />
supporting and undertaking breast cancer research<br />
in Europe to design a strategy for the pan-European<br />
harmonisation of breast cancer research.<br />
• To develop a process of audit of completed research<br />
whereby research projects will also be judged as to<br />
whether they have advanced the science and to what<br />
degree they are relevant to clinical practice.<br />
• To maintain a database of projects and of the audit of<br />
completed projects.<br />
• Audit of past projects and production of a policy paper<br />
for implementation.<br />
• To infl uence journal editors, to ensure higher standards<br />
are set for acceptances for publication of results; validation<br />
and clinical relevance will be the most important<br />
issues.<br />
238 CANCER RESEARCH PROJECTS FUNDED UNDER THE SIXTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME
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