Work Packages

EURAMED rocc-n-roll involves seven interdependent work packages covering all tasks and deliverables vital to the project’s success.

Work Package 1: Coordination, project management and dissemination

The primary objective of WP1 is to ensure the most effective overall legal, contractual, administrative and financial management of the project. WP1 aims to provide efficient, participatory decision-making and effective day-to-day management of the project. In addition, WP1 encompasses the coordination of the project governance, including management of all consortium-internal and external bodies and related meetings with particular emphasis on the workshops and panels, which are needed to generate the consensus for the SRA and related documents. WP1 ensures the quality and timeliness of project progress and results, while addressing risk planning and management of ethical issues. Furthermore, dissemination, stakeholder engagement and outreach activities as well as exploitation and knowledge management are coordinated by WP1 in concert with other WPs.

The specific aims are to:

Provide decision making and governance mechanisms for the project;
Ensure fulfilment of the work plan, including risk management and quality assurance;
Guarantee punctuality and quality of the project’s deliverables and milestones;
Effective communication and punctual reporting to the European Commission;
Ensure efficient financial and administrative management of the project;
Maintain regular and seamless communication between the project partners;
Manage all consortium-internal and external bodies and corresponding meetings;
Set up and maintain the project web space and visual identity, develop and implement dissemination plan and material;
Coordinate stakeholder outreach, dissemination and communication of project results to identified target groups;
Coordinate exploitation and knowledge management;
Review the integration of the clinical approaches needed for the project.

Work Package 2: Analysis of existing approaches of SRAs and related documents in the field of medical radiation protection and medical use of radionuclides

The objective of WP2 is to elaborate the ideas of the European radiation protection research platforms which are not primarily dealing with the medical radiation protection field (MELODI, EURADOS, SHARE, ALLIANCE, NERIS), but with radiobiology, radiation dosimetry, social sciences and humanities, radioecology and preparedness for nuclear accidents, in the context of medical applications of ionising radiation and the corresponding radiation protection. In addition, WP2 aims to analyse the ideas and concepts of the SAMIRA project and MEDICIS project and those of regulators as regards the application of ionising radiation in medicine. The interlinks and interests of these platforms and groups regarding the EURAMED rocc-n-roll SRA and subsequent roadmap will be identified and deliverables will be developed that will feed into WP6.

The specific aims are to:

Analyse perspectives on medical radiation protection research from radiation protection platforms’ existing SRAs and related documents to identify and prioritise research topics that may have synergies with topics of the EURAMED SRA, including in particular dosimetry, radiation biology and social sciences aspects;
Identify and prioritise research topics that will enable researchers to produce, validate and introduce in clinical practice new, unconventional radiopharmaceuticals as well as radiation technologies that could be useful in medical diagnosis and treatment;
Analyse the research needs to ensure the long-term supply of medical radioisotopes;
Discuss with regulators in order to identify needs for European medical radiation protection research relevant to the needs, their duties and responsibilities having e.g. a dedicated focus on the task of ionising-radiation based screening activities and application of new technologies.

Work Package 3: The health perspective and risk benefit approach

The primary objective of WP3 is to ensure the inclusion of a broad health perspective of application of ionising radiation and RP in the project, including an in-depth analysis of the EC health and Euratom programmes (see bullet below). WP3 aims to provide efficient participation of the different areas in healthcare to be considered in the risk benefit approach and relying on health issues where application of ionising radiation is most relevant for patient care but also in terms of RP. WP3 aims to focus on the disease areas most relevant in terms of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches based on ionising radiation and potential RP issues and to provide its findings and conclusions as input to WP6.

The specific aims are to:

Provide coverage of the health perspective of application of ionising radiation in medicine and radiation protection in healthcare in the project focusing on the selected disease areas as well as to analyse needs, opportunities and common interests;
Ensure identification and coverage of relevant clinical interests in the medical SRA and roadmap;
Analyse the ‘Health’ cluster of the Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation with a view to identifying synergies with the Euratom Research and Training Programme 2021-2025;
Provide the patient perspective to research needs in medical application of ionising radiation and medical RP;
Identify the risks, gaps and benefits of a European consensus regarding optimal and safe use of ionising radiation for patients and staff in neuroendovascular procedures, oncological applications, cardiovascular procedures, pediatric applications and all other fields;
Contribute the clinical aspects to dissemination, stakeholder engagement, outreach activities and exploitation in conjunction with other WPs.

Work Package 4: Infrastructures, digitisation and digitalisation: approaches and ethics

The primary objective of WP4 is to analyse existing infrastructures relevant for the applications of ionising radiation in medicine and related RP research and aims to address the need for new infrastructures and related RP research. This will include the development of a dedicated scheme to perform a SWOT analysis for potential centres of excellence in the field of medical applications of ionising radiation. Moreover, WP4 aims to assess the impact of digitalization in healthcare on medical applications and related radiation protection and to address the opportunities, challenges and caveats of AI applications and advances in electronic patient records in medical applications and related RP. Another objective of WP4 is to deal with the question how ethics and data protection issues related to medical applications and RP research need to be addressed in future projects.

The specific aims are to:

Analyse existing infrastructures and their suitability to be used for research in the area of medical applications of ionising radiation;
Define parameters, conditions, obstacles, chances and prerequisites for the evaluation of potential centre(s) of excellence in the framework of medical applications of ionising radiation;
Elaborate the opportunities and challenges for optimised patient care and research topics based on digital data storage, handling and evaluation e.g. using electronic patient records and image or data repositories, considering relevant examples such as advanced national electronic health record systems in use in Estonia or Austria;
Investigate potential areas for the application of AI methods for optimised uses of ionising radiation in medical healthcare and for medical radiation protection purposes;
Identify the patient-related aspects of storage and use of personal data as well as the ethical questions related to the use of AI-based improvements in medical diagnosis and therapy.

Work Package 5: Industrial research, innovation and sustainability

The objective of WP5 is to analyse the research needs for innovation in radiation based high-quality healthcare across Europe and foster interactions between industry and academia research as well as clinical practitioners to reach such high-quality healthcare in a sustainable manner.

Patient-specific therapies are considered to increase both specificity and safety of therapeutic medicine in general, and this is especially valid for ionising radiation-based diagnosis and therapy. New diagnostic imaging technologies, molecular imaging methods, interventional procedures, image guided radiotherapy and e.g., theranostic-based nuclear medicine therapy offer unique opportunities. These innovations as many others have led and are leading to improved cure rates, however, the transfer into clinical daily routine throughout Europe is not fully achieved. The prerequisites need to be addressed that allow direct interactions between clinicians, academic research groups and industrial research groups to ensure approaches for sustainable, most successful healthcare as well as economic benefit to the European people and its industry. A major challenge for medical radiation applications and protection research is thus the effective translation of outputs to industry, into wider clinical practice, and into education and training programmes. Future research must ensure that steps are taking to facilitate translation. Thus, the main focus of WP5 will be how this can be achieved in future research projects.

Work Package 6: SRA, roadmap and the interlink document

The objective of WP6 is to bring together the results of WPs 2 to 5 and 7. A consensus has to be derived on the overall structure as well as on the general contents of the SRA, roadmap and the document that describes the interlinks with research platforms in the RP field but also with the approaches in the health sector and the digitisation programmes. Its main objective is to generate the above-mentioned documents.

The specific aims are to:

Define the specific questions and tasks for WPs 2-5 and 7 by a consensus building workshop;
Set up a structure for the foreseen documents: Strategic Research Agenda, Roadmap and Interlink document;
Generate consensus about the content of the documents and the priorities in the research needs identified integrating the EURAMED SRA;
Develop and compile the three documents and discuss them within the consortium and with identified stakeholders.

Work Package 7: Education and training in medical application of ionising radiation and related radiation protection

The objective of WP7 is to develop a methodological framework and guidance document on how to organise, implement and disseminate the education and training (E&T) in medical RP amongst health professionals and how to include E&T in all research projects to enable researchers a sound knowledge base of the science required for RP research, to build capacity in RP research and ensure sustainability of the field, including the link with industry regarding new technological developments, from a RP perspective.

This will serve as a strategy to establish a harmonised and sustainable safety culture in RP amongst health professionals/researchers, as well as engaging younger/new generations in this field of research. The output of WP7 will be integrated into the deliverables of WP6.

The specific aims are to:

Identify the needs/problems/challenges for each health profession in relation to applying ionising radiation and related RP E&T;
Analyse the existing RP education and training capabilities in the EU;
Define what, how and when the RP E&T should be provided as part of health care education;
Generate a model on how to “train the trainers” in medical application of ionising radiation and RP;
Develop a methodology on how to integrate RP E&T in clinical studies;
Define how to disseminate and integrate RP E&T in the training curriculum of health professionals and researchers;
Establish tools for educating clinical research;
Increase research capacity in the RP field.