European Council for Health Research would help avoid waste and duplication, group says
Almost fifty MEPs and representatives of dozens of European biomedical research organisations have called on the European Commission to establish a dedicated body to coordinate health research on the continent.
“The Covid-19 crisis has highlighted Europe’s strength in health research but also its weaknesses when it comes to a coordinated response for health policy, strategy and research,” the group said in an open letter to the Commission dated 9 July.
“The crisis provides a unique opportunity for the European Commission to put in place coordinating instruments and mechanisms embedded in a European Council for Health Research,” it said.
This “credible…multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder” council should help provide resilience for future health crises through long-term, “much-needed visionary leadership for health and health research”. It should be “responsible for designing and implementing a roadmap for health research and for linking newly acquired knowledge to a pan-European health policy”.
The signatories said the council should help link the EU’s planned 2021-27 R&D and health programmes. Without such a body, fragmentation and duplication will lead to funding being wasted and opportunities to find strengths in collaboration and synergies being missed, they said.
Signatories included the BioMed Alliance, which represents 33 European biomedical research societies, and the Federation of European Academies of Medicine.