The National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) has launched a new five-year strategy and wants to accelerate progress in cancer research through collaboration.
The strategy will help cancer research funders to maximise opportunities to improve the health and quality of life of people who have had, or may one day develop, cancer. It will also ensure research continues to drive improvements in prevention, treatment, and patient care and support.
Cancer survival rates have doubled in the last 40 years and research has been central to this success. The NCRI Partnership will work together to achieve four goals: to accelerate the translation of cancer research into clinical practice, to improve the quality and relevance of research related to cancer, to address major opportunities and challenges in cancer research and to ensure a coordinated portfolio of cancer research in the UK.
Around 2.5 million people are living with, or have experienced, cancer across the UK and this number is expected to rise to around 4 million by 2030 as the population ages and research develops better treatments to help more people live longer with and beyond cancer.
Karen Kennedy, director of the NCRI, said: “There has never been a more urgent need for collaboration to fund research that addresses the complex needs of cancer patients at every stage of their journey through and beyond cancer. Research is making life-changing advances in cancer treatments, but the long-term effects of cancer can have a far-reaching impact, affecting people’s health and quality of life.”
The NCRI Partnership enables collaboration between 19 of the biggest funders of cancer research from the UK’s charity and government sectors. It facilitates more than 250 meetings per year, to bring together the right clinicians, scientists, research nurses, patient experts and other specialists to tackle the big issues facing cancer research.
Its activities include co-ordinating a Clinical Trials Unit Group, where trial specialists collaborate to identify needs common to all cancer clinical trials, and its Clinical Studies Groups - a series of advisory groups spanning all cancer types that bring together UK experts to accelerate research to improve cancer treatments, and help those affected by cancer to live well.
