canSERV (Prestação de serviços de ponta no domínio da investigação sobre o cancro em toda a Europa)

Overview

Project Summary

canSERVs mission is to make cutting-edge and customised research services available to the cancer research community EU wide, enable innovative R&D projects and foster precision medicine for patients benefit across Europe. By connecting, coordinating, and aligning existing oncology and complimentary research infrastructures (RIs) and providing services in a synergistic way transnationally, canSERV will capitalise on the critical mass of experts and cutting-edge services offered by canSERVs RIs and their extended network. canSERV brings together world-class European life science RIs (BBMRI, EURO-BIOIMAGING, ELIXIR, EU-IBISBA, EuroPDX, EU-OPENSCREEN, INSTRUCT, EATRIS, INFRAFRONTIER, EMBRC, ECRIN, EATRIS, MIRRI, ARIE, CCE, EORTC and IARC) that collectively not only covers all aspects along the development pipeline for oncology, but is also capable of interconnecting these technologies providing users a guidance for navigating them through the entire translational value chain. The patient organization ECPC will bring the patient’s perspective, while the two SMEs, ARTTIC and ttopstart, will provide valuable input regarding stakeholder engagement, and project management activities.

A common access management system (CAMS) will be developed based on mature solutions from INSTRUCT and BBMRI. The CAMS will provide a method for selection of services, construction and submission of research proposals, multi-step review of research proposals, and tracking of the access process from approval through delivery to conclusion. Through a united user-intuitive transnational access where a united catalogue of oncology services will be offered, our users will have access to a comprehensive service portfolio. As our ambition is to scale up canSERV to a pan-European collaboration of RIs for accelerating the development and implementation of solutions for the cancer patient community, the sustainability of this network beyond the end of the project will also be addressed.

Main Goals

We envision to establish an open and sustainable collaborative network of research infrastructures (RIs) in oncology which will offer worldclass services valuable for all major stakeholders (e.g., excellent researchers, universities, institutes, high-profile SMEs, and European research consortia). Our mission is to make cutting-edge and customised research services available to the cancer research community EU wide, enable innovative R&D projects and foster precision medicine for patients’ benefit across Europe. By connecting, coordinating, and aligning existing oncology and complimentary RIs and providing services in a synergistic way transnationally, canSERV will capitalise on the critical mass of experts and cutting-edge services offered by RIs. This will create a unique de-fragmenting Europe-wide highly integrated network of RIs to strengthen Europe’s Research & Innovation (R&I) portfolio for tackling cancer and accelerate the developmental pipeline of oncology innovation in Europe. This RI cluster is designed to align and build interoperability between RIs, generating unprecedented overarching service chains for research in oncology.

To achieve these ambitious goals, we have formulated the following key objectives:

1. To offer at least 200 different unique Personalized Oncology (PO) relevant and valuable cutting-edge services for life science research in Europe over the next 3 years. The services offered in canSERV will cover the research needs of the entire oncology developmental pipeline, from discovery to implementation in the health care domain as recommended by the Cancer Mission Board. This includes: disease models, advanced cuttingedge technologies, biomarkers research and development, novel therapeutics developments, complex clinical trial design and support, personalised oncology implementation pipelines and recommendations, and regulatory support and tools to analyse the socioeconomic dimension of research activities. A highlight of the project will be the creation of an expert and multidisciplinary network, the European Molecular Tumor Board Network (EMTBN; see WP6), that will be newly established by canSERV and open for participation beyond the consortium partners. This rich portfolio of services creates a unique value proposition providing not only services but also guidance to the Cancer research community. 60% (€9M) of the overall project budget will be allocated towards the provision of TNA services. Customised and combined workflows consisting of multiple services from multiple RIs will be offered as part of this project. The selection of services offered will be reviewed by the Management Board on an annual basis, based on demand and the availability of potential new, highly innovative services. Furthermore, we propose to organise annual challenge-driven calls for multidisciplinary and/or synergistic projects in oncology for academia and industry. canSERV will accelerate and optimally contribute to the advancement of frontier knowledge in areas complementary to those addressed by provided services. To this end, we have reserved 25% of the TNA budget for challenge-driven calls for projects based on an internal roadmap that will be annually set by the external Science, Stakeholder & Ethical Advisory Board (SEAB). At least 15% of calls will be reserved for projects that include industry (e.g., biotech /biopharmaceuticals SMEs).

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Number of services included in portfolio (target: 200), number of requests provided on annual basis (target:50), number of applications for services (target: 80).

2. To establish a single, unified transnational access and training for all services. canSERV will develop a gateway to the service catalogues and data discovery services operated by the contributing RIs to allow users to browse and search suitable services. The TNA platform developed based on integration of ARIA (by INSTRUCT) and Negotiator (by BBMRI) will support proposal maturation and access negotiation functionality followed by monitoring of service delivery and support for data deposition or data return after project finishes. The TNA platform will interface existing access management systems of RIs wherever possible, so that the service providers will interact through the RIs they are affiliated with. The initial version will be released early in the project (M6) and will be further developed throughout the project lifespan. Beyond the currently offered RIs’ services, we will align with our external scientific advisory board to make novel emerging services available through the project period while we envision to open up the TNA for further RIs’ services beyond the funding period. 

KPIs: Number of RIs represented in the catalogue (target: 12); Number of months before TNA is available (target: 6).

3. To ensure data generated through oncology-related service provision will be fully compliant with the FAIR principles and complement and synergize with other relevant EU initiatives (e.g., EOSC, UNCAN.eu). Data availability and interoperability is key to the digital future of research. With a central role for the newly established EOSC, we propose to establish an interface between Europe’s life science RIs and the EOSC via relevant embedded data resources. In collaboration with the project granted through the Horizon Europe EOSC-06 call with a particular link through canSERV’s WP9, we will account for standardized and FAIR data exchange routes specifically for catalogues, molecular and imaging data and UNCAN.eu. Two workshops addressing these topics are envisioned to be executed together with the selected Horizon Europe EOSC-06 proposal and have been budgeted for in canSERV. In order to ensure sustainability beyond lifetime of the project, FAIRification of the data will rely on services provided by the contributing RIs, including data deposition services operated by ELIXIR (which in this proposal is represented by EMBL) and BBMRI, and FAIRification support services provided as a part of WP9. Moreover, canSERV has liaised with the coordinators of the upcoming UNCAN.eu initiative and will actively participate - at minimum as consulting partner - in UNCAN.eu (represented at least by BBMRI, ELIXIR and EUBIO) to develop a roadmap that identifies key priorities to enable canSERV RI services to become an integral part of future UNCAN.eu programmes and to enable efficient data management and exchange.

KPIs: Percentage of publicly shareable data shared with EOSC, UNCAN.eu and/or similar initiatives (target: 95%).

4. To sustain the network and unified resources of the oncology-related service provision beyond the duration of the project.canSERV will unify the oncology-related services by the various life science RIs in Europe within a single catalogue and user-friendly TNA process. Close integration with contributing RIs for both discovery/findability and access management will ensure sustainability of the platform beyond the project duration and will enable inclusion of additional cancer research-related services offered by RIs to enhance sustainability, add value and build and support structuring of ERA. In addition, we also aim to enable onboarding of new RIs with incisive cutting-edge services related to oncology within the network beyond the duration of the action. This collective effort will create the foundations for a prospective development of cancer research in Europe by defragmenting technological development strategies, sharing knowledge and training and testing future technological breakthroughs that will define the identity of canSERV as an essential support to the ERA for providing effective solutions to the cancer patient community; e.g. by fostering cross-border, highly transdisciplinary research programmes and roadmaps in line with the EU Beating Cancer Plan.

KPIs: Number of services beyond those offered in canSERV supported by the TNA process (target: +40%).

Project Details