Call for Proposals: Use Cases for the UNCAN.eu Research Data Platform

Deadline: 18/09/24

The European Commission (EC) is seeking proposals to operationalise the UNCAN.eu research data platform foreseen in the Cancer Mission implementation plan, through a series of use-cases.

To this goal, proposals are expected to develop tools supporting researchers to access, manage and analyse cancer digital data, building among others on resources developed by EOSC4cancer.

The goal of the Mission on Cancer is to improve the lives of more than 3 million people by 2030, through prevention, cure and for those affected by cancer including their families, to live longer and better. The objectives include: Understand; Prevent what is preventable; Optimise diagnostics and treatment; Support quality of life; Ensure equitable access in all aforementioned areas. The Mission on Cancer will address all cancers including poorly-understood cancers[[ Includes refractory cancers or cancer subtypes, at any stage of the disease in any age group and part of society with a 5-year overall survival that is less than 50% from time of diagnosis.] in men and women, cancers in children, adolescents and young adults as well as in the elderly, cancers in socio-economically vulnerable populations, living in either cities, rural or remote areas, across all Member States and Associated countries.

The Mission on Cancer is implemented using a health-in-all policies approach Health in All Policies is an approach to public policies across sectors that systematically takes into account the health implications of decisions, seeks synergies, and avoids harmful health impacts in order to improve population health and health equity, through infrastructure support; regional, social and citizen community development; through investments; support and commitments from public and private sources, including from Member States, Associated countries and industry; through cooperation with third countries; and through synergies with other existing EU programmes including EU4HEALTH, EURATOM, Digital Europe, Erasmus+, the EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2021-2027 and other initiatives related to cancer.

Proposals for topics under this Mission should set out a credible pathway to improving Cancer control, and more specifically to all of the following impacts:

Improve understanding of the development of cancer in the context of the environment, work, and lifestyle in the broadest possible sense,
Enhance cross-policy cancer prevention strategies,
Optimise the diagnostics and treatment of cancer based on the principle of equitable access,
Improve the quality of life of cancer patients, survivors and their families through widely analysing all key factors and needs that are related to the quality of life,
Accelerate the digital transformation of research, innovation and health systems.

Scope

The successful proposal should:
- Develop the UNCAN.eu platform by integrating and, where relevant, complementing existing or planned data nodes of European research infrastructures and/or other national infrastructures that may link various cancer data holders across Member States and Associated Countries (e.g. hospitals, research centres, comprehensive cancer centres, etc.). The number of Member States involved should be sufficient to demonstrate scalability and flexibility of the UNCAN.eu platform while allowing for stepwise onboarding of more countries.
- Provide tools, services and workflows to researchers across data nodes for dataset creation, standardisation, data discovery, secure access, management, visualization, harmonization, analysis and other functions as appropriate. This task should capitalise on EOSC4cancer’s achievements, integrating and expanding as appropriate the available tools and solutions. It should also take advantage of the European Health Data Space and the European Open Science Cloud frameworks.
- Design and implement a rich and diverse portfolio of use-cases to inform, steer the development and demonstrate the validity of the UNCAN.eu platform. Use cases should focus on research questions that are in line with the Cancer Mission objectives and that may advance the understanding of mechanisms involved in cancer development and progression beyond the current state of the art. At least one use-case should target a cancer type with a 5-year overall survival of less than 50% from the time of diagnosis. A second use-case should target paediatric cancer.
- At the same time, use-cases should be functional to the design and implementation of UNCAN.eu to increase the diversity of digital tools and services available for cancer researchers. The mobilisation and integration of a large amount of research and real word data beyond current practice and a balanced participation of clinicians, disease experts and data scientists will be essential to achieve the objectives of this topic. Due attention should be paid to sex and gender, disaggregating the data as appropriate.
- The successful consortium should develop innovative approaches, to integrate and analyse heterogeneous data from multiple sources and different research domains, including the participation of the necessary interdisciplinary set of European infrastructures and national data nodes. In this regard, at least one use-case should integrate imaging, digital pathology and genomic data, using and/or contributing with new data sources to the Genomics Data Infrastructure (GDI) and Cancer Image Europe (EUCAIM).
- Give emphasis to data being managed and shared in line with the FAIR principles, and the concept of FAIR-by-design is applied wherever possible. The applicants must demonstrate that the necessary data sources are, or will be, effectively and timely available. During the project lifetime, new data sources that might become available at a later stage can be accommodated as well as allowing additional data holders to join the UNCAN.eu platform. Results must be open source and made available through a public repository under a permissive license. Open access data should be provided whenever possible.
- Give due consideration to, and establish appropriate links with, EU-funded initiatives such as EHDS-related governance and implementation actions, the European Network of Cancer Registries.
- Foresee to establish links with the successful proposal resulting from the topic HORIZON-MISS-2024-CANCER-01-02 ‘Support dialogue towards the development of national cancer data nodes’.

Eligible Activities

Eligible activities are the ones described in the call conditions.
Applications will only be considered eligible if their content corresponds, wholly or in part, to the topic description for which it is submitted. Projects must focus exclusively on civil applications and must not:
- aim at human cloning for reproductive purposes;
- intend to modify the genetic heritage of human beings which could make such changes heritable (except for research relating to cancer treatment of the gonads, which may be financed);
- intend to create human embryos solely for the purpose of research, or for the purpose of stem cell procurement, including by means of somatic cell nuclear transfer.

Outcomes

Proposal(s) under this topic are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:
- The UNCAN.eu platform is developed by federating a network of cancer data nodes built on European and national computing infrastructures that link different cancer data holders across European countries.
- Use-cases focusing on the understanding of cancer initiation and progression are designed and implemented by multidisciplinary teams to develop tools and services for working with FAIR data.
- Researchers and clinicians use the electronic resources provided by the UNCAN.eu platform to access, manage and analyse data of heterogeneous types and belonging to different research domains at an unprecedented scale.

Eligibility Criteria

Affiliated entities
- Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary 7 which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.
Associated partners
- Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any specific call/topic conditions. Entities without legal personality
- Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons.
EU bodies
- Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.
Joint Research Centre (‘JRC’)
- Where provided for in the specific call/topic conditions, applicants may include in their proposals the possible contribution of the JRC but the JRC will not participate in the preparation and submission of the proposal.
Associations and interest groupings
- Entities composed of members (e.g. European research infrastructure consortia (ERICs)) may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’. However, if the action is in practice implemented by the individual members, those members should also participate either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities (otherwise their costs will not be eligible).
Restrictions on participation in Innovation Actions
- Legal entities established in China are therefore not eligible to participate in Horizon Europe Innovation Actions in any capacity.
beneficiaries, three legal entities independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:
- at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State; and
- at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.