Cancer Care Beacon - Reducing Disparities Across the European Union

2026-07-22

Despite significant advances in cancer therapy, there is still a long road ahead to improve disparities in cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, quality of life, management of survivorship, and palliative care at the end of life. Among the challenges encountered within and across Europe, the most common disparities are observed in accessing information, spiraling costs of healthcare, accessing optimal treatment options with complete treatment modalities and optimal outcomes, ensuring the best Quality of Life for patients during and after the treatment process, integrating cancer research and innovative cancer care, and accessing networked, multidisciplinary cancer care teams. In response to this concerning scenario, the Cancer Care Beacon project focuses on three iterative pillars: (1) mapping of capacity and capabilities across cancer centers in the European Union; (2) creating decision support tools that will assist our four stakeholders: patients in finding the best centers, providers in sharing resources and expertise, researchers in sharing data, and policymakers in aligning funding allocation with patients' priorities; and (3) getting training and accreditation to reflect the quality of their cancer care. Throughout this project, we will deliver three main end products: (a) proposed roadmap to scale current capacity and capabilities in order to address existing cancer disparities, (b) a plethora of reports, including both static documents and interactive Web applications, aimed at supporting decision making by our four stakeholders, and (c) a sustainability plan on how we intend to directly work with our partners to keep the project alive and active beyond the two-year duration of the funding by Horizon Europe.

Italy

2025-10-01