Several Belgian funding institutions of cancer research will cooperate in a network, the Belgian Cancer Research Consortium, to leverage their work and enhance strategic collaboration between individual researchers and organisations. This partnership is a first in Belgium.
The Belgian Cancer Research Consortium is the first cooperation initiative of its kind for cancer research in Belgium.
The aim is: - to create a network and to encourage greater collaboration in cancer research; - to gain a better understanding of the national funding landscape in order to achieve more impactful funding; - to use funding resources more efficiently; - to contribute to the international exposure of Belgian research and researchers.
The Belgian Cancer Research Consortium will join the International Cancer Research Partnership (ICRP), a global network of cancer research funding organisations working together to improve global collaboration. The ICRP has 32 partners and 156 international funding organisations worldwide, sharing information. As part of ICRP, Belgian research and researchers will be much more visible cross borders.
The Belgian consortium wants to be a learning network that shares best practices. It wants to detect unmet needs at the medical, patients and community levels and will be open to collaborations with other organisations, in Belgium and abroad.
In a first phase, the consortium will exchange data on research funding from all participating organisations and will make the data available to researchers, patients, patient organisations and funders via the ICRP platform.
