Proposals should address all of the following:

• Validate innovative surgery-centred, multi-modal treatment interventions to treat cancer patients with locally advanced or metastatic disease. When appropriate, investigators should consider minimally-invasive surgical treatment interventions combined with either relevant medical devices or other multimodal treatment interventions;
• The chosen surgery-centred intervention(s) should be validated through academic investigator-initiated clinical trials. Translational research is limited to supporting the conduct and analyses of the proposed clinical trial(s);
• The chosen surgery-centred treatment intervention(s) should be adapted to the needs of the target population and the specificities of healthcare provision at local, regional, or national level, duly reflecting the (cultural) diversity and available resources across Member States and Associated Countries. Data should be disaggregated by sex, gender, age and other relevant variables, such as by measures of socio-economic status or ethnicity;
• The primary and secondary endpoints of the clinical trial(s) should support overall survival, patient-reported outcomes and quality of life issues. Such endpoints should be defined together with patients and their caregivers through research that stimulates social innovation and supports end-user engagement using participative research models;
• Affordability of the chosen surgery-centred treatment intervention(s) should be demonstrated via a cost-effectiveness analysis.
• Include an appropriate mix of stakeholders from various disciplines and sectors, such as physicians, academia, patients and their caregivers, patient representatives, SMEs, insurance companies, engineers, physicists, charities, foundations, research and innovation organisations, civil society, regional as well as national health authorities;
• All datasets produced should be described with metadata records in the EU dataset catalogue of the European Health Data Space while all tools and models should take advantage of current European research infrastructures, should follow the principles of open science and be made available through the future UNCAN.eu platform.

This topic requires the effective contribution of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise in the successful proposal, to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

The successful proposals are expected to build on resources made available by the Knowledge Centre on Cancer (KCC) to foster EU alignment and coordination.