Abstract
The Biomedical Alliance for Health Research represents 21 European Scientific Societies who formed an organisation to campaign in areas of mutual interest.
The four founding organisations were the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), European Cancer Organisation (ECCO), European Respiratory Society (ERS) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD). These organisations representatives made up the original Board and contributed the secretarial manpower. The Board was expanded by two new members at the General Assembly in Brussels during November 2012. I was honoured to be elected onto the board on behalf of United European Gastroenterology (UEG). The board will increase by a further three members to be elected at the next General Assembly. The Public Affairs committee under Professor Reinhold Stockbrugger saw the alliance as an ideal opportunity for the promotion of gastroenterology and they campaigned for UEG to become a member with the guidance of Soeren Haar and Mischa Van Eimeren of EACON, the UEG EU Affairs agency in Brussels.
AIMS:
The major focus of the Alliance is to campaign for a strategic panel to advise the European Commission. The panel would foster innovation in Europe by using contemporary evidence to bridge the gap between health research and policy for the benefit for society. This should be done within the framework of Horizon 2020, the framework programme for Research and Innovation 2014–2020. This represents an important step for the advancement of the health research agenda in Europe. This panel should have the right to set the scientific direction and priorities and consult independently with its stakeholders to support its decisions. Health research is the key to identify causes of disease and in developing strategies for health promotion and prevention as well as diagnosis and treatment, it helps to save lives.
There are challenges despite an expansion in genomics and biomedical research in Europe because of the unfavourable climate for health research.
Many European innovators relocate outside Europe.
There are enormous societal challenges given the demographic trends in an aging population, increasing health care costs and the economic downturn.
The Alliance is convinced that strategic long-term planning is needed to ensure basic science discoveries which promotes better health for citizens and that the scientific community needs to be led by stakeholders in the health continuum and should include patient representatives.
Opportunities have been lost as innovative cycles in this field take up to 10 years. Up to now the focus on funding has been on short term projects of 3–5 years. This results in excellent networks of collaboration being discontinued once the project funding is complete. The Biomedical Alliance has been successful in convincing the European Commission to create a Scientific Panel for health. This was achieved with the support of the European Parliament. One of the objectives of the Scientific Panel is to support European front line research groups and to take the innovative ideas to the market place as quickly as possible.
Health is unquestionably wealth but Europe is falling behind in terms on innovative health research.
Unmet Needs:
There is need for better co-ordination and strategic planning of biomedical research funding programmes at European level and a multidisciplinary approach.
There is a need to support research programmes and longer-term collaboration that can achieve translation of research findings into innovative outcome.
There is a need to promote multidisciplinary collaboration across all disciplines of all relevant stakeholders not only biomedical scientists but industry and patient organisations.
Important steps have been made to create this Scientific Panel. The first will be a nominating committee to recommend members to the panel approved by the commission. The panel would consist of up to twenty leading BioMedical researchers.
All of these projects are shared by all the major European Scientific Societies by having a united single voice will make the case more convincing. The success of this endeavour will led to further collaboration in the areas of co-operation with pharmaceuticals companies, data protection, stem cell research and laboratory animal research.
UEG because of its federated structure can contribute to unite these organisations and search for other areas of co-operation in which we have common goals.