Neurodegenerative disease joint programming needs cash to build momentum

The EU Joint Programme for Neurodegenerative Disease research has released its first strategic plan, including a list of research and infrastructure needs to be filled if Europe is to tackle the growing challenge of such disease among the elderly.

The programme has been flagged by the European Commission and the Council of Ministers as a prototype for co-coordinating Europe’s fragmented national research programmes, which account for nine-tenths of all public research spending in the EU. However the rollout of the plan by JPND chairman Philippe Amouyel, an epidemiologist at the University Hospital of Lille, and research commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn failed to include specific promises of cash from national research agencies—raising issues about how much the programme will actually achieve.