Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda
As the Agenda of the new European Brain Health Partnership is being defined, NeuroCentury was pleased to take part this week in the Survey on strategic priorities in the field. The Survey, prepared by Coordination & Support Action BrainHealth, remains open for submissions until 21 August: https://www.brainhealth-partnership.eu
The Brain Health Partnership will be a major European funding instrument, combining allocations of the EU Member States and those of the European Commission.
The current excellent draft outlines four priorities:
- Promoting Brain Health and Preventing Disorders to identify brain health determinants and promote early prevention strategies across the lifespan,
- ·mproving Early Detection, Treatment and Care for timely detection of brain disorders and innovative, personalised, therapeutic strategies – including digital and AI-powered tools,
- Enhancing Care and Support to accelerate the translation of research into clinical practice, enable patient engagement in research and foster access to treatment,
- Addressing Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues affecting brain health to develop guidelines for responsible innovation and care.
In our submission, we called for doubling down on prevention, prioritising targeted strategies where existing evidence is sufficiently strong when it comes to determinants and protective factors for neurological and mental disorders. We also believe that the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda should include a bold and comprehensive approach to data analysis in brain health. This approach would encompass multiple dimensions of big data, including the depth of phenotyping, which involves detailed clinical, genomic, instrumental, and biometric data collection.
The need for a new science of patient input should be reflected in the Agenda as well. This involves integrating patients directly into research teams and decision-making processes, ensuring their perspectives and experiences are integral to the research.
A systemic investing approach should integrate data-driven research to identify modifiable risk factors across multiple brain disorders, bridging gaps in our current understanding and targeting interventions where evidence is strong. Moreover, the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda should advocate for comprehensive brain health tracking systems. These systems would enable earlier diagnosis, more personalized interventions, and better predictive models, ultimately shifting care from reactive to proactive.