Kick-off meeting
14-15 November, 2022
NH Milano President,
Largo Augusto, 10, Milan, Italy
The Kick-Off Meeting opened with an introduction by the Coordinator, Paolo Casali and Giovanni Nicoletti from the Italian Ministry of Health, followed by a round of presentations by the Beneficiaries present, together with a brief outline of each country’s team of Affiliated Entities. Matthias Schuppe from the European Commission stressed the importance of creating synergies and cross-cutting themes within Europe’s Beating Cancer Plane and the need to collaborate with the sister Joint Actions CraNE and eCAN with a view to sharing expertise and resources, working together and supporting each other. The ultimate goal is to enable patients across the EU to benefit from greater knowledge and more accessible services.
The Coordinator as well as all partners highlighted the importance given by the EC to networking. The 24 European Reference Networks (ERNs), the only existing formal model in the EU today created by the Commission in 2017, face several problems, therefore, not a new perception of what networking might mean in the real world is needed. The shaping up of NoEs on cancer should set the selection for potential partners. NoEs should be inclusive and involve all relevant communities with special emphasis on patients. The main goal should be to close gaps in power imbalances, expertise imbalances and knowledge information in order to facilitate a constructive relationship with patients.
In general, in the context of this two-day-meeting, issues such as Cancer NoEs shaping up, communication and sustainability were thoroughly discussed in an effort to identify appropriate methods and tools to accomplish JANE’s main goals and even go beyond that. Additional issues having to do with managerial, financial and practical issues such as implementation monitoring, eligible costs, reporting, consortium meetings and communication were also discussed and agreed upon.