Professor William Gallagher:

I will tackle the first part of the EU programmes and the American ones may complement those. The first thing to indicate is that Irish researchers have very much taken a leadership role in cancer research programmes which have been funded at a European level. For example, I have led five large-scale EU cancer research programmes and I have similar colleagues out there. We are good at co-ordinating these types of complex network programmes at a European level and we are considered as being able to do that and we have equivalents in Northern Ireland.

On the opportunity, again there is an EU Beating Cancer Plan which I believe has been allocated approximately €4 billion and is one of the very significant projects at European level. There are five dedicated missions, one of which is cancer. These activities span from basic research towards the clinical arena. It is important that we position ourselves for participation. While we have had a good track record of participation in these programmes, the process has changed and one has to become clustered and very much more centralised in a team-based approach.

A good example of that would be - perhaps Professor Lowery might comment on this - where there is a push towards comprehensive cancer centres at a European level.

We do not currently have a comprehensive cancer centre in Ireland. We have the OECI cancer centre established at Trinity St. James's Cancer Institute and there are similar institutions pursuing that. The challenge is to become a comprehensive cancer centre because that is becoming the requirement for participation. Again, it is called out in the national cancer strategy. The AICRI can provide at least one mechanism or plank in terms of supporting that because what is critical for a comprehensive cancer centre is not only cancer care but also that research is an integral component of that. It needs to have a very strong research agenda to be able to become a comprehensive cancer centre. We can have an argument about whether it will be one site or a distributed site, or what is the accreditation system, but, ultimately, we need to come together to be able to participate at a European level and it is critical that we do that. Professor Lawler may want to comment further.