EU Mission: Cancer

Cancer: improving the lives of more than 3 million people by 2030 through prevention, cure and for those affected by cancer including their families, to live longer and better.

Cancer affects everyone regardless of age, gender or social status and represents a tremendous burden for patients, families, and societies at large. 

According to the European Cancer Information System, each year 2,7 million people are diagnosed with cancer and 1,3 million lost their lives due to this disease in Europe. If no further action is taken, the number of people newly diagnosed will increase to more than 3,24 million by 2040.

The Cancer Mission has defined clear and ambitious objectives to reverse these frightening trends.

By joining efforts across Europe with citizens, stakeholders and Member States, the Mission on Cancer together with the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan will provide a better understanding of cancer, allow for earlier diagnosis and optimisation of treatment and improve cancer patients’ quality of life during and beyond their cancer treatment.

The 4 Mission objectives

1. Understanding of cancer
2. Prevention and early detection
3. Diagnosis and treatment
4. Quality of life for patients and& their families

Find opportunities to support your ideas on cancer research, innovation, technology and cancer control on the Funding and Tenders Portal, in particular under the Horizon Europe Programme (including the work programmes for missions), the EU4Health Programme, the Digital Europe Programme, the Euratom Programme, and the Interregional Innovation Investments funding instrument.

Cancer project portfolio

An extensive portfolio of project results (total EU-funding well over €4 billion) on cancer research and innovation funded under past framework programmes FP6 (2002-2006), FP7 (2007-2013), and Horizon 2020 (2014-2020), as well as the current Horizon Europe Framework Programme (2021-2027) can be found in the CORDIS database, including the 46 projects working together in clusters and supported by the Cancer Mission.

A complementary portfolio of projects on cancer supported by the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan can be found here (EU4Health Programme) and here (EUCAIM project, Digital Europe). Other cancer-related projects supported by Digital Europe include QCLN and GDI. The ERDF Interregional Innovation Investment Instrument supports the DIGIONE I3 project.

Cancer-related projects supported by European Regions can be found in the KOHESIO database.

• Mission-oriented policy for Horizon Europe
• Horizon Europe
• Dialogue with the Member States: Public Health Expert Group meetings on Cancer
• Specific Action: Cancer Screening
• Dialogue with Stakeholders: EU Health Policy Platform
• JRC’s Knowledge Centre on Cancer
• Cancer Mission implementation

Sessions from the European Research and Innovation days

• Developing a science to policy ecosystem for cancer control (2022)
• Focus on needs of young cancer survivors (2022)
• Mission area cancer (2020)
• Co-design session on Cancer mission (2019)

EU Missions are a new way to bring concrete solutions to some of our greatest challenges. They have ambitious goals and will deliver tangible results by 2030. 

They will deliver impact by putting research and innovation into a new role, combined with new forms of governance and collaboration, as well as by engaging citizens. 

EU Missions are a novelty of the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme for the years 2021-2027. 

RTD-SANTE-CANCER-MISSIONec [dot] europa [dot] eu (RTD-SANTE-CANCER-MISSION[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)