The Early Career Investigator Program of the EORTC was created in order to prepare the next generation of leaders that this organisation will need. We cannot just assume that the organisation can face the challenges that we expect due to the changing environment between 2020 and 2030 and we decided that we should build on the younger generation, prepare them for the multiple challenges that we will have to take. Because we expect a substantial evolution of our environment and we need to continue, of course, our mission which is to improve survival and quality of life of cancer patients.

What is the importance of this program?

This program is particularly important to the organisation because we need to constantly adapt to the environment; we need to prepare our scientific strategy. So the investment in the scientific strategy goes also together with an investment in the human capital. So we need to invest in these rising stars, I like to call them the rising stars, and enabling them to take these important questions that oncology will have to deal with in the coming decade.

How are the participants selected?

Basically what we did to select the participants is that, of course, we have a large network of disease and technology oriented groups and we discussed actually with the current leaders of our groups and with them we have identified the persons, the younger persons, who were really promising to have an important career, people that are expected to make a difference in their discipline. The idea was, indeed, to bring these promising persons in Europe together and create these connections so that they could learn together the challenges and address the challenges of clinical research of tomorrow.

How has the program progressed over the past two years?

It was a program that has, of course, progressed in several steps because we started with the basics first, about the organisation, what it is, where it’s coming from, where it’s going, where we are assuming it’s going.  Basically we grew over, I would say, two years, over eighteen months, going across a series of selected anticipated challenges. With them we went through, for instance, discussing with important stakeholders in the field such as the commercial sector, the regulators, the policy makers, all the stakeholders who we expect are going to have an important contribution and to whom they should be actually acquainted with and be able to discuss the challenges. So it went together with training in so-called soft skills in communication, in leadership, and together with, of course, their expertise in oncology plus their expertise in clinical research and developing progressively soft skills. We hope that we have helped them positioning to take these leadership positions in the future.

How will this program shape the future of EORTC, and also clinical medical research?

Of course the importance is to have an impact – have an impact for cancer patients, an impact on survival, an impact on quality of life. So we expect that these people now have acquired the skills to really build on the scientific strategy which we are going to continue to shape with them, with their input. They were asked also to think about some core activities of the organisation such as, for instance, the future of the EORTC scientific strategy, the future of the organisation in terms of network organisation, the future of the organisation in terms of its partnerships. So that’s the way we are going to build with them and to make a change in the organisation progressively and, of course, with the ultimate goal of having an impact in Europe. But also positioning the organisation in the global picture for our partnership throughout the world and be able, of course, to sustain an important agenda of clinical research, changing practice clinical research.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

What I would like to add is that it’s really important that today we really build on this younger generation. It is something that is not said enough, we have to repeat it. We have to develop the means. We have to enable these younger people to succeed and we have to prepare today for the patients of tomorrow and to continue this therapeutic progress we need really to invest in human capital and be ready to take these challenges.