Press MEPs call on the European Commission to reinforce research on cancer
German MEP Christian Ehler and Portuguese MEP Maria da Graça Carvalho, respectively the EPP coordinator and deputy coordinator at ITRE, sent a letter to the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel, stressing the need to increase funding and support to cancer related activities in the work programmes 2023-24 of Horizon Europe.
In the letter in question, the two MEPs mention several warnings received directly from the scientific community stating that they are having trouble to find opportunities to increase the impact of their activities through Horizon Europe.
“In these first years of implementation of Horizon Europe, the multiannual work programmes for health (Cluster 1) contained very few calls for proposals dedicated to intensify collaborative research in cancer”, they write. “There is the need to change this trend and include a special focus on cancer research into the next 2023-2024 work programmes. Research activities are seeds for innovative and technological advancements in therapies. We should not miss the opportunity of addressing properly the needs deriving from the research community”.
Many of the complaints received address the fact that the Horizon Europe Cancer Mission is more oriented towards dissemination, promotion and networking activities and less towards direct funding of fundamental research. Therefore, another of the appeals received is that this mission should be reoriented towards concrete scientific advances in the fight against this disease.
The importance of synergies, the role of the Horizon Europe Joint Undertakings and the need to reduce administrative burdens for beneficiaries are other aspects covered in the letter.