Coordinated by Health-RI and with a consortium of 40 partners from 20 European countries, the project will support Member States and Associated Countries in setting up National Cancer Data Nodes. These Nodes will promote the development of standardized services for managing and sharing cancer data nationally and across borders, connecting different national actors.
Despite vast amounts of cancer-related data in Europe, fragmentation and lack of interoperability hinder progress in cancer research and treatment. CANDLE addresses this by establishing trusted nodes to connect data, tools, and expertise across borders. These National Cancer Data Nodes will facilitate access to cancer data from across Europe. Cancer researchers can then access more data than is currently accessible – and help Europe better understand cancer. This can fuel the development of new cancer treatments, diagnostics, and better information to patients, survivors, and carers – and much more.
CANDLE will work toward this by:
- Promoting the development and implementation of National Cancer Data Nodes in participating countries, to support users in handling their data with the right applications and underlying infrastructure.
- Promoting harmonisation and standardisation of cancer data.
- Supporting data discoverability, accessibility, and reuse in line with FAIR principles.
- Enabling cross-border, GDPR-compliant data sharing for research and innovation.
- Benefiting from the European Health Data Space and contributing to the UNCAN.eu European Cancer Data Infrastructure.
The National Cancer Data Nodes implemented in CANDLE will closely link to other European cancer data initiatives for alignment and the exchange of good/best practices: 1) the UNCAN.eu platform, a federated cancer research data infrastructure being developed under the upcoming EU project UNCAN-Connect, and 2) the European Cancer Patient Digital Centre (ECPDC). The figure below displays the steps that the project will take, from conceptualisation all the way to upscaling of National Cancer Data Nodes:
Driving Integration Across Europe
CANDLE will play a strategic role in supporting the European Health Data Space (EHDS) by establishing a federated network of national nodes in the cancer domain. These nodes can be seen as demonstrators for national disease-specific implementation of the EHDS, aligning EU-wide health data policies with regional and national requirements. Furthermore, CANDLE puts into practice the EU Mission on Cancer and Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan by supporting their implementation on national level and fostering dialogue with other major initiatives.
