The European Partnership for Action Against Cancer was initiated by the EU Commission in September 2009 with the support of a number of stakeholders like ECPC, bringing together the Commission, Member States and their Ministries of Health, patient organisations, health professionals, scientists, private industry and civil society. It has embarked on an ambitious agenda of a pan-European collaborative effort to tackle cancer more evenly and effectively across the EU.

The goals of the Cancer Partnership are two-fold:

1. To help all EU countries tackle cancer more evenly and effectively by sharing information, resources, best practice and expertise
2. To avoid fragmented and duplicated effort and maximise the limited resources available - by coordinating action on cancer involving member countries, scientific experts, patient organisations and other key stakeholders.

The four pillars of the Cancer Partnership are:

1. Prevention (Health promotion and early detection);
   
2. Identification and promotion of good practice in cancer-related healthcare;
3. Priorities for cancer research;
4. Health information, collection and analysis of comparable data.

ECPC's involvement

Patients should be at the center of the Partnership. Therefore, ECPC was invited to play an active role in all those meetings, representing the cancer patients' voice in each of the four areas of the Partnership. As a result, ECPC together with ESO and the Member State Slovenia were selected to be the lead actors in the Virtual Partnership. The Virtual Partnership will enable partners who are not directly involved in Partnership actions to follow via the Internet what's going on in the Partnership, and to contribute ideas - and hence will be a great tool also for our ECPC member organisations. ECPC has now proposed a detailed concept to the Commission and will further discuss this with all stakeholders.

ECPC's proposed initative on Young people's involvement in the European Partnership was also accepted as a cross-cutting issue covering all issues that the Partnership will address. It will allow young people from across Europe to be involved in the Partnership for Action against Cancer from all Member States that our member organizations are from. Discussions will continue how this will be integrated into the Partnerships' actions, but in parallel, it has already started to discuss this initiative with focus groups and youth groups.

In addition, ECPC was asked to be involved in all four pillars of the Cancer Partnership, and will be delighted to actively include its membership in all proposed activities.

Meetings and Timelines

29 September 2009: Launch Meeting

On 29 September 2009, more than 300 cancer organisations, patients and cancer survivors, health professionals, researchers, health authorities and health ministers gathered in Brussels to mark the official launch of the "European Partnership for Action Against Cancer".  During the formation of the Cancer Partnership, ECPC was invited as a key stakeholder, and actively participated in preparatory meetings and workshops.
See ECPC Member Update

7-8 December 2009: 1st preparatory meeting

The aim of the first preparatory meeting held on 7-8 Dec 2009 was an exchange of views about possible areas and directions to be considered within the framework of the Partnership. There were two main topics of discussion: how to structure the multi-stakeholder platform in the way to assure continuous action in the area of cancer prevention and control, and the immediate areas and actions to be addressed within the framework of the initiative.
See ECPC Member Update

28 January 2010: 2nd preparatory meeting

The purpose of the 2nd preparatory meeting meeting held on 28 January 2010 was to agree on the activities within the core work packages of the joint action on cancer that would be proposed for the period of the following three years (2010-2013), to identify leaders for each work package, and to agree on the way forward. ECPC has been offered a seat in the Partnership's Steering Group, and its suggested activities "Virtual Partnership" and "Younf Europeans in the Partnership" were welcome. See ECPC Member Update

19 March 2010: Deadline for the submission of all proposals to the EAHC "Joint Action" programme.

Additional links

• Official Website of the EU Commission about the European Partnership for Action Against Cancer