Sustained collaboration of national and regional cancer funders to support the Cancer Mission through translational research

The successful proposal will enable national and regional cancer funders across Europe, guided by a common Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, to: 1. Issue at least four transnational calls for translational cancer research, resulting in collaborative grants to academic investigator-led third parties; 2. Streamline and harmonise national, regional, foundation-based and charity-based funding practices for peer-reviewed translational cancer research, with a view to piloting novel funding schemes and ensuring the sustainability of the funders’ network.

Proposals must address all of the following requirements: 1. Align, coordinate and support efforts among national and regional public and private translational cancer research funding programmes to issue at least four joint transnational calls integrated with the Cancer Mission and Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan; 2. Pool necessary financial resources from participating programmes and, where appropriate, leverage funds from foundations, charities and transnational initiatives, while avoiding overlaps with other Horizon Europe-funded research; 3. Demonstrate the added value and impact of collaboration using key performance indicators, including leverage effects on European and national research and competitiveness; 4. Propose and pilot novel funding schemes and joint activities such as analyses of funding programmes, impact studies, dissemination strategies, citizen and patient engagement models, and capacity-building or training; 5. Ensure that datasets produced by third-party collaborative grants are managed according to FAIR principles and that tools and models adhere to open science principles; 6. Interface with current European research infrastructures and support the future UNCAN.eu platform; 7. Build a sustainable, long-term network of funders with streamlined, harmonised practices for organising peer-reviewed funding calls.