EU networks for cancer care: EU4Health Joint Actions JANE and CraNE

EU cancer networks are key to sharing knowledge within the European oncology community and to support the health of people in the EU in a highly coordinated fashion.

Funded under EU4Health, the Joint Actions JANE and CraNE worked on the establishment of cancer networks:

• JANE conceptualised seven new Networks of Expertise (NoEs) focusing on personalised primary/secondary prevention, survivorship, palliative care, omic technologies, hi-tech medical resources, complex & poor-prognosis cancers and adolescents and young adults with cancer;
• CraNE prepared the necessary preconditions for the creation of Networks of Comprehensive Cancer Centres (CCCs) in all EU countries and to develop an EU network to connect these. 

Given their successful implementation and to follow up on their developments, both Joint Actions will continue under EU4Health as JANE-2 and EUnetCCC, which launched on 1 November 2024 and 1 October 2024, respectively. Joint Actions are collaborative projects involving several EU and associated countries to address key EU health policy priorities. 

To learn more about these Joint Actions, HaDEA spoke with representatives of both projects: 

• For JANE, Paolo Giovanni Casali, Director of the Medical Unit at the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori in Milan and Associate Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Milan in Italy and Annalisa Trama, Director of Evaluative Epidemiology Unit at the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale Tumori and also a member of the Steering Committee and Board of the European Reference Network (ERN) EURACAN. 
• For CraNE Tit Albrecht, Scientific Coordinator of the Joint Action, PhD in health services research.

Could you tell us more about the Joint Actions and their relevance in the cancer field? 

JANE: The first Joint Action on Networks of Expertise (JANE) stems from Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. It aimed to develop an ambitious vision for the creation of seven transversal Networks of Expertise (NoEs) in the area of oncology. The follow-up Joint Action, JANE 2, comprising 121 partners from 25 EU countries and 4 associated countries, aims to turn this vision into reality by shaping and deploying the 7 new Networks of Expertise across EU countries and beyond.

“Cancer is currently the second leading cause of death, and its absolute numbers are rising, with new cases estimated to increase by almost 80% by 2050”. 

Cancer care is increasingly complex, its treatment highly multidisciplinary, and diagnostic and therapeutic techniques are continuously evolving alongside the impressive pace of clinical and translational research. Moreover, its socioeconomic impact is becoming increasingly problematic, even in affluent societies. Given all this, health networking is a formidable solution to make state-of-the-art treatments available to the highest number of patients at the lowest health and social costs, while fostering research and medical education.

CraNE: The main achievement of the Joint Action has been to establish the governance and management structure for the future European Comprehensive Cancer Centre (CCC) network. It has also developed sets of standards for the certification of these centres and piloted CCC networks (CCCNs) for lung cancer. CraNE has also created a Maturity Model for the self-assessment and further development of these centres.

How important has the support of EU funding been for your Joint Action? On which results of your Joint Action will the follow-up Joint Action build to achieve EU’s objectives? 

JANE: 

“EU funding has been instrumental for JANE and its community, to create the vision for the seven new transversal Networks of Expertise (NoEs).” 

These NoEs, conceived by JANE in close partnership with many key European stakeholders in the area of oncology, hold the promise of creating a new way of supporting high-quality care to all patients with cancer in the EU, particularly in some cancer care areas. 

JANE 2, the follow up Joint Action, will work towards making this vision a reality, by shaping these NoEs over the coming four years. Importantly, these networks of expertise will be the first of their kind. If this pioneering model works, they may also serve as a pilot for additional networks in other disease areas.

CraNE: EU funding was vital in the process, to make sure the objectives of the JA were reached within the available time. CraNE will have several long-term positive impacts: 

• The establishment of the EU Network of CCCs; 
• The gradual establishment of certified CCCs in all EU countries and the strengthening of their collaboration with other networks, such as JANE and the European Reference Networks, as well as with EU-funded projects like ECHoS and CCI4EU;
• The increased quality of care, the reduction of differences between regions and countries, the links between CCCs and CCCNs for better access to comprehensive cancer care.

The outputs of the JA CraNE are going to feed directly into the new JA EUNetCCC, which will build on CraNE’s results to launch the new network and start the certification processes for the upcoming CCCs.

Have you encountered any significant challenges in implementing your project and preparing for the establishment of new networks of expertise? 

JANE: To define the vision of the NoEs, we involved the JANE community and the main European stakeholders in the cancer area, reaching a broad consensus, even though it was not easy to bring together different perspectives. The most recurring questions that are still open and will be discussed in JANE-2 are related to the sustainability of NoEs and how these European networks will find proper counterparts at the national level, for example by establishing parallel networks, where appropriate, in full collaboration with EU countries. 

CraNE: There have been a number of challenges encountered, but the main one relates to ensuring synergies between the objectives of the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, towards which CraNE has been working, and national decision-making level, in particular by making sure that the scientific institutions involved in the Joint Action can translate and positively contribute to national policy-making.

Nonetheless, the JA has succeeded in developing a framework and a set of criteria to enable the implementation of Comprehensive Cancer Centres within an EU Network.

Related links:

JANE

CraNE

EUnetCCC

Background

EU4Health is the fourth and largest of the EU health programmes. The EU4Health programme goes beyond an ambitious response to the COVID-19 crisis to address the resilience of European healthcare systems. The programme provides funding to national authorities, health organisations and other bodies through grants and public procurement, contributing to a healthier Europe.  

HaDEA manages the vast majority of the total EU4Health budget and implements the programme by managing calls for proposals and tenders from 2021 to 2027.