Final Report on Pan- European Disease- Specific Investigator Networks Workshop
On October 1, ECRIN and a selection of its national partners hosted a workshop dedicated to the development of Pan-European Disease-Specific Investigation Networks, which took place in Brussels.
The workshop aimed to discuss the features and utility of Europe-wide disease-specific investigation networks that would serve to increase patient recruitment and investigation for both investigator-initiated and industry-sponsored trials, and act as a complementary mechanism to the existing disease-agnostic research infrastructures such as ECRIN, where the central node provides generic multinational trial management services to the study sponsor through the coordination of local / national CTUs.
The report outlines key findings that came from the day's discussion. Three characteristics for pan-European disease-specific networks were brought forward. They are disease expertise, benefit to the patients, and network readiness/competence. These are followed by a reflection on the types of networks that could be selected and the sustainability model to be adopted. Taking into consideration these elements, a model is proposed by ECRIN whereby the disease-specific investigator network would focus on the research question, the patient recruitment and the investigation, while a centralised coordination node could take on many of the cross-cutting activities.
