On September 12th, the 4th Management Board of the ERA4Health Partnership was held in Madrid, Spain, hosted by the Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII). During this hybrid meeting the 33 partners of the consortium discussed the progress achieved in the first two years of implementation: 4 Joint Transnational Calls (JTCs) launched – 2 already funded and in development- ; Development of a framework for Investigator-Initiated Clinical Studies (IICS); Update of the Strategic, Research and Innovation Agenda; Establishment of the Early Career Network; RRI guidelines for applicants; 2 training webinars coming soon; 2 Advisory Boards in place working on strategic policy and ethical issues; as well as surveys in potential topics for upcoming JTCs and identifying barriers during the market uptake. An update of the different pillars and their respective work packages were presented by the responsible partners. Additionally, Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) experts provided their feedback regarding the integration of RRI aspects in the funded projects and how to improve it.
36 participants were present in Madrid and 22 attended online the meeting. The main part of the discussions concerned the 2nd phase of the ERA4Health project and the Pilot Call of the IICS, foreseen to be launched by the end of this year and that will be focused on multinational pragmatic trials on comparative-effectiveness.
The European Commission (DG-RTD) representative, Grzegorz Owsianik, and the Project Officer from HaDEA, Monica Ensini, also participated in this meeting and recognized the great progress and hard work of the Partnership towards increasing European transnational collaborative research funding in priority areas of European public health needs.
