Establishing of national cancer mission hubs and creation of network to support the Mission on Cancer

The integration of the Mission on Cancer with activities at national, regional and where relevant at local level will be of utmost important to ensure its success. Taking into account the differences of national health and research and innovation systems, the coordination and support of cancer mission-related activities at national, regional and where relevant at local level are essential in this regard. At the same time, synergies with actions under Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan need to be generated.

The successful proposal should aim at delivering results that are directed at and contributing to all of the following expected outcomes:

• The activities of the Mission on Cancer are integrated with activities at national, regional, and local levels;
• Actors in national, regional or local health and research and innovation systems are engaged in the policy dialogue on cancer;
• Citizens, including patients, and national, regional and local stakeholders are engaged in the policy dialogue on cancer.

A national cancer mission hub will be established in each Member State and Associated Country. Its activities will include awareness raising and coordination of the Mission's activities among and with relevant actors in national, regional or local research and innovation and health systems, while also generating and leveraging synergies with Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, thus fostering an enhanced policy dialogue on cancer control at national, regional or local level. Hence, the activities will be complementary to the ones of the National Contact Points that focus on Horizon Europe Work Programmes^[1]. National cancer mission hubs will be established either by building on existing structures (e.g. mirror groups) or by creating new ones.

Notably these hubs will:

• Facilitate integration of the activities of the Mission on Cancer at national, regional, and local levels e.g. identifying synergies between European, national, regional and local policies and initiatives related to cancer;
• Facilitate engagement of relevant actors and stakeholders at national, regional or local level going beyond the research and innovation and health systems to cover all relevant areas in cancer control and support policy dialogues on cancer (examples include employment, education, socio-economic aspects);
• Support citizen engagement activities at national, regional and local levels, including new participatory formats.

The proposed activities of national cancer mission hubs should be closely linked with those of the established National Contact Points (NCPs) under Horizon Europe, the National Focal Points (NFP) supporting the EU4Health programme and those of the contact points of other EU funding programmes^[2].

The national cancer mission hubs should operate for the whole duration of the Cancer Mission. As the volume and nature of activities is likely to evolve over time, the support for national mission hubs will be provided in two phases. This first phase will have a duration of 3 years (2023-2025). The support provided in the second phase will build on the achievements and needs identified during the first phase.

The Commission may facilitate Mission-specific coordination through future actions, such as the successful proposal TRAMI resulting from the topic HORIZON-MISS-2021-COOR-01-01, “Coordination of complementary actions for missions”. Therefore, the successful proposal should include a budget for the attendance to regular joint meetings and may consider covering the costs of any other potential joint activities without the prerequisite to detail concrete joint activities at this stage. The details of these joint activities will be defined during the grant agreement preparation phase and project duration. In this regard, the Commission will take on the role of facilitator for networking and exchanges, including with relevant initiatives and stakeholders, if appropriate.

[1] Home | Horizon Europe NCP Portal

[2] e.g. EURATOM, Digital Europe Programme