PROJECTS

The Horizon 2020-funded CORBEL project aims to establish shared services between the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures Biological and Medical Sciences Research Infrastructures (ESFRI BMS RIs)–which includes ECRIN–for the biomedical research community. CORBEL will achieve this by creating cross-infrastructure scientific workflows.

A suite of common services will be developed and dynamically updated in response to specific user and research infrastructure needs. Partnerships with user communities working in European programmes such as Joint Programming Initiatives (JPI) or ERA-NETs (European Research Area Networks) and private-public partnerships such as the Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI) will be facilitated by single access points and joint services. CORBEL has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 654248.

ECRIN Integrating Activity (ECRIN-IA) is a collaborative project, initially running from 2012 to the end of 2015, funded by the European Commission Framework Program 7 and involving 23 countries (click here for country contacts). Work package (WP) 7 was extended until 2017.
ECRIN-IA’s purpose is to build a consistent organisation for clinical research in Europe, providing generic tools and services to multinational studies, and supporting the construction of pan-European disease-oriented networks that will become ECRIN users and provide clinical research projects. This organisation will improve Europe’s attractiveness to industry, boost its scientific competitiveness, and result in better healthcare for European citizens. Activities are divided into nine work packages (WPs):

WP1–Management, governance and coordination of the project
Overall management of the project is coordinated by the ECRIN Paris office.

WP2–Expansion, capacity building and funding
Networking activities promote pan-European expansion, capacity building and partnership with other world regions, and promote appropriate funding mechanisms.

WP3–Education, e-services and communication
E-services for researchers and education material to train professionals and patients associations are developed in this work package, which also addresses communication with users, patients, citizens and policymakers.

WP4, 5 & 6–structuring rare disease, medical device and nutrition networks
Structuring European hubs and networks for clinical research on rare diseases (WP4), medical devices (WP5) and nutrition (WP6). The networks will design and conduct multinational clinical studies.

WP7–Transnational access
Transnational access activities support the cost of multinational extension of clinical trials selected by the ECRIN Scientific Board. Five trials are supported in three areas: MENAC (nutrition); ESCALE and POEM vs LHM (medical devices), RESCUE ESES and IMPACTT (rare diseases).

WP8–Monitoring
Identification, assessment and validation of tools for the implementation of risk-based monitoring strategies will improve the efficiency of ECRIN services.

WP9–Data management
Adaptation of the VISTA Trials data management software will provide a state-of-the-art and efficient Clinical Data Management Tool for multinational clinical trials to the ECRIN user community and for non commercial clinical research.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for Capacities - Research Infrastructures under grant agreement no. 284395.