Grants to support Integration of Cancer Images into the Federated Pan-European Infrastructure

Deadline: 10-Oct-24

The European Commission (EC) is accepting proposals to foster innovation and deployment of digital technologies in cancer treatment and care, to achieve more precise and faster clinical decision-making, diagnostics, treatments, and predictive medicine for cancer patients.

In the framework of the initiative, a pan-European federated infrastructure of deidentified, real-world imaging data of cancer patients is deployed under the EUCAIM project.

Objectives

The action will provide enabling support for cancer imaging data providers, to contribute to and benefit from the European Cancer Imaging Initiative.
The action will improve readiness of national, regional or local imaging data repositories to connect and make available their data via the Cancer Image Europe infrastructure established under the DIGITAL programme (EUCAIM project) and to use this infrastructure for data enrichment and insights by accessing the nodes, tools and methodologies offered by EUCAIM.
This action is relevant for the proposed European Health Data Space. In order to contribute to the planned EHDS, this action will seek alignment with the relevant EHDS infrastructures (MyHealth@EU and HealthData@EU). Where applicable, it will link cancer imaging databases with the relevant bodies and infrastructures in the proposed EHDS, particularly health data access bodies and HealthData@EU.
This action will also explore ways to leverage on the EHDS interoperability specifications for the European Electronic Health Record exchange Format, including relevant eHealth Network guidelines, as well as minimum specifications for datasets to be used for research and innovation.
This action will support the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan objective to ensure high standards in cancer care and implements the EU4Health Programme’s general objective of improving and fostering health in the Union to reduce the burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases (Article 3, point (a), of Regulation (EU) 2021/522) through the specific objectives defined in Article 4, points (a) and (g), of Regulation (EU) 2021/522.
This action will also support the implementation of the proposed EHDS Regulation and implement the EU4Health Programme’s general objective of strengthening health systems (Article 3, point (d) of Regulation (EU) 2021/522) through the specific objective defined in Article 4, point (f), of Regulation (EU) 2021/522.

Scope

This action contributes to the implementation of the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan.

Funding Information

The estimated available call budget is EUR 25 400 000.
Topic budget: EUR 8 000 000
Indicative project budget: EUR 4 000 000
Expected number of grant agreements to be signed: 2

Duration

36 to 48 months

Expected Impact

The action will support hospitals and other imaging repositories, for example those involved in conducting cancer screening, in creating enabling conditions for becoming a node in the European federated infrastructure of cancer imaging data. Short-term improvements include strengthening the collaboration between national and regional screening programmes for breast, lung and prostate cancers, with the European Cancer Imaging Infrastructure in particular regarding the management of the screening data and opportunistic screening (as opposed to organised, populationbased screening programmes) and with the relevant infrastructures of the proposed European Health Data Space, such as HealthData@EU. The project beneficiaries are expected to represent a wide range of relevant stakeholders such as researchers, NGOs, experts, Member States institutions and industry.
In the mid-term, this action is expected to increase the geographical reach of the European Cancer Imaging Initiative. It will also contribute to the alignment of the European Cancer Imaging Infrastructure with the proposed EHDS infrastructures and processes.
Close collaboration of projects participants is expected with the European Cancer Imaging Initiative, in particular the EUCAIM project, and with relevant stakeholders involved in the implementation of the proposed EHDS regulatory framework, such as the TEHDAS 2 Joint Action, QUANTUM and the HealthData@EU pilot project. Links should be established with EU4Health actions on screening, Comprehensive Cancer Centres in Member States and other relevant actions under the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and Cancer Mission, as well as with other relevant actions concerning the proposed EHDS. The action shall contribute to other relevant actions under the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and the Cancer Mission.

Activities

The activities that can be funded under this action include all tasks necessary for federating data into the Cancer Image Europe platform, including creating the data warehouses and establishing processes necessary for making the imaging data and related clinical data available for secondary use. Networking, communication, coordination, planning, training, reporting, and dissemination activities are also eligible.
The following activities should be addressed to:
- increase the geographical coverage of the European Cancer Imaging Initiative;
- increase the availability of cancer imaging data representative of the European population for the development of trustworthy and scalable AI-based solutions for cancer screening and care in the area of breast, lung and prostate cancers in the context of the European Cancer Imaging Initiative;
- increase the availability of cancer imaging data made available for research and innovation in the context of the proposed European Health Data Space;
- contribute to the alignment with the relevant bodies and infrastructures of the proposed European Health Data Space, particularly health data access bodies, HealthData@EU and MyHealth@EU;
- provide targeted and onsite support in adopting the guidelines on the best data warehouse architectures, creating the data warehouses necessary for making the data available for secondary use, establishing internal processes, training and addressing the legal issues in alignment and complementarity with the activities under the EUCAIM project and in alignment with the proposed European Health Data Space rules and infrastructures;
- provide support measures for quality-control, annotation and extraction of the data from the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) to the data warehouse, supporting the uptake of the European Electronic Health Record exchange Format;
- use and contribute to applicable minimum specifications for datasets related to cancer imaging, including data elements, controlled vocabularies, quality requirements, in alignment with the proposed European Health Data Space Regulation;
- increase the awareness, in cancer-related use cases, of medical images and reports specifications of the European Electronic Health Record exchange Format;
- provide activities to facilitate the adoption of AI-based technologies based on imaging data in the daily practice of clinical centres to support cancer screening, detection and treatment;
- increase access to and uptake of innovative AI-based solutions based on imaging data for cancer detection and treatment;
- empower patients to donate their health data through data altruism, including incentives, methods and tools for data altruism targeted at empowering patients in relation to donating their health data, in particular imaging data;
- increase resource efficiency of national healthcare providers through the deployment of AI-based technological solutions;
- contribute to other relevant actions under the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and Cancer Mission, involving patient organisations and establishing links with data altruism organisations and regional, national or European initiatives on health data reuse for research and innovation.

Deliverables and/or Milestones

The applicants should describe cancer image datasets, their expected size and level of standardisation and harmonisation with the EUCAIM agreed data requirements, the processes and tools for harmonisation and quality evaluation that will be applied to ensure reproducibility of radiomics results. The applicants should also describe how the project meets or is going to meet the minimum technical requirements elaborated in the context of the European Cancer Imaging Initiative by the EUCAIM project, including the related timeline, if applicable.
Applicants should co-ordinate with the Cancer Image Europe activities conducted by the EUCAIM project, to avoid duplication of efforts and maximise impact. The proposed action shall include a specific work package on collaboration and alignment with the EUCAIM project. The specific management, collaboration and communication mechanisms that the project will use to collaborate and integrate with EUCAIM should be described in the proposal. They may be subject to adaptations and be further detailed during the grant agreement preparation.
Applicants should take into account the developments on the European Electronic Health Record exchange Format (EEHRxF) and liaise with actions and projects that are developing EEHRxF capabilities and specifications, such as the Joint Action XtEHR.
In order to ensure effective alignment with the European Cancer Imaging Initiative and in particular with the Cancer Image Europe platform, the following mandatory deliverables must be included:
- Every 6 months, regular report to HaDEA on progress, challenges and alignment with Cancer Image Europe, including report on data integration into the Cancer Image Europe platform;
- Sustainability report for project results and established practices, including lessons learned.
The metadata records provided to the Cancer Image Europe platform must be compliant with the EHDS metadata standard, Health DCAT-AP. Other suitable deliverables relating to project activities should be defined in the proposal.
The visual identity and communication materials of the project should be aligned with those of the Cancer Image Europe. Project website should be implemented by month 3 of the project.

Specific action-level indicators for reporting purposes

The applicants should consider the following indicators for reporting on the progress achieved in their project and as result of project activities:
- number of data providers who have adopted guidelines and implemented best practices relating to medical images in line with Cancer Image Europe specifications and best practices;
- number of data providers who have adopted the eHealth Network guidelines on medical imaging studies and reports;
- number of data providers who have adopted the European Electronic Health Record exchange Format (EEHRxF) for medical images;
- number of data providers who have federated data into the Cancer Imaging Europe Platform (in Tier 1, 2 and 3);
- dataset sizes and coverage (different cancer types, imaging modalities, countries) of datasets made available in the Cancer Image Europe platform.

Eligibility Criteria

Applicants – specific eligibility criteria
- Academia and education establishments, research institutes, hospitals, expert networks including ERNs, civil cociety organisations: associations, foundations, NGOs and similar entities, private entities (for profit/not for profit), Member States’ authorities.
Consortium composition – Specific eligibility criteria
- A consortium composed of at least 7 applicant organisations established in at least 7 different eligible countries.
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- be legal entities (public or private bodies)
- be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
  - EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
  - eligible non-EU countries:
    - listed EEA countries and countries associated to the EU4Health Programme.