JANE-2, also stemming from Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan (EBCP), aims to build seven new Networks of Expertise (NoEs) in the area of oncology over the next four years. Based on the outcomes of JANE, NoEs will be built within JANE-2 and their activities will be funded in the first four years, through work packages (WPs), focusing on:
1) Complex and poor prognosis cancers (WP5).
2) Palliative care (WP6).
3) Survivorship (WP7).
4) Primarily and secondary cancer prevention (WP8).
5) Omics technologies (WP9).
6) Hi-tech medical resources (WP10).
7) Adolescents and young adults (AYA) with cancer (WP11).
The project’s management and coordination overall are implemented within the context of WP1 and there are three additional work packages supporting the goals and ambitions of this Joint Action, namely WP2: Dissemination, WP3: Evaluation and WP4: Sustainability. The project is coordinated by Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nationale dei Tumori (INT), Italy, and involves the cooperation of 131 organisations from 29 European countries.
NoEs aims and scope: These Networks of Expertise will be the first of their kind and aim to provide the highest standard of care to the citizens and inhabitants of the EU in oncology, with a potential to serve as a pilot for new disease areas. NoEs should provide services to the European cancer community, each of them focusing on its subject. Moreover, their services may include, but will not be limited to, the following:
a) producing, or supporting, clinical practice guidelines and/or general recommendations for medical professionals, patients, the public
b) raising public awareness and carrying out advocacy/policy actions
c) developing healthcare organization models
d) developing educational initiatives/tools for medical professionals and patients
e) undertaking efforts to promote research
f) developing quality criteria for accreditation/endorsement mechanisms
g) engaging patients and the public.
Therefore, NoEs will provide services to the cancer community, first to health care providers directly reaching out to patients. This also implies that NoEs should formally incorporate other entities in addition to health care providers, i.e. scientific and professional societies, patient advocacy groups, research institutes devoted to items such as molecular biology, public health, health economics, etc. NoEs will have to find tools by which their members will be able to interact with their Member States (MSs), which also has implications for their sustainability.
Synergies: In principle JANE-2 is different from other EU networks, such as European Reference Networks (ERNs) on rare cancers, which gather health care providers specializing in rare cancers, and the new Comprehensive Cancer Infrastructure Network (CCIN), which is made up of EU comprehensive cancer centres and their infrastructures. The wide range of objectives that NoEs will fulfil may bring about some degree of overlap with other EU networks (i.e. CCIN and ERNs), but also scientific and professional societies at the European and national level, patient advocacy groups, etc. An effort has been made within JANE-2 to ensure that areas of overlaps may translate into synergies by pursuing complementarity and avoiding different entities carrying out the same tasks.
Main Challenge: By the end of JANE-2, NoEs will have to be largely independent and able to collaborate with each other, the other EU networks (CCIN, ERNs) and the whole European oncology community.
