Continuation and strengthening of the Norwegian Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (NorCRIN) - "NorCRIN 2"

NorCRIN ble etablert i 2010 av universitetsykehusene i Norge. Initiativet ble støttet av Helse og omsorgsdepartemenetet, og NorCRIN ble viktig i Norges nåværende strategi for helse, forskning og innovasjon (HelseOmsorg21). Departementet oppmuntret NorCRIN til å søke medlemsskap i ECRIN (ecrin.org), den all-europeiske infrastrukturen for støtte til multinasjonale, kliniske forskningsprosjekter, og som igjen er inkludert i European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI-roadmap). Den multinasjonale og delte infrastrukturen i ECRIN bidrar til at forskere over hele Europa kan få tilgang til "state-of-the-art" i utstyr, trening og støttetjenester, som vil gjøre det enklere å studere forebyggende tiltak, diagnoser og behandling. NorCRINs aktive deltakelse i ECRIN blir derfor verdifull for norsk forskning. En hovedutfordring til å forbedre klinisk forskning er å etablere et forskningsmiljø med et kompetent pesonale, både innen klinisk og transnasjonell forskning. Å bygge en attraktiv infrastruktur for klinisk og translasjonell forskning er følgelig NorCRINs hovedambisjon, både I Norge, i Norden og i Europa for øvrig, og da i samarbeid med både akademiske og industrielle miljøer.

The Norwegian Clinical Research Infrastructure “NorCRIN” was established in 2012 by the university hospitals in Norway. The initiative was strongly supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services, and was outlined as a key element in the Norwegian Strategy for Health, Research and Innovation (HelseOmsorg21). NorCRIN has since the start of the 5-year funding period (RCN 2015), through work packages (WPs) on practicalities such as Standard Operational Procedures (SOPs) also for trials beyond the pharmaceutical ones, monitoring, e-CRF, industry collaboration and requirement for early phase research facilities, been an important national infrastructure supporting clinical research. NorCRIN’ s partners now want to expand and further develop NorCRIN in a new project, NorCRIN 2, within the established organization with secretariat at St. Olavs hospital and local nodes at each partner, the six university hospitals in Norway. New WPs in NorCRIN 2 include data management, statistics advanced clinical trial methodology, pragmatic trial/register based RCTs, internationalization, and patient and public involvement. Thus major challenges related to state-of-the-art aspects of clinical and translational medical research are addressed. To meet these and to be able to serve the clinical researchers adequately, it is necessary that NorCRIN 2 further advances and broadens its capacity in each partner and the consortium as a network as described above. The application for NorCRIN 2 addresses specific needs in clinical research, corresponding to the goal of the call: to give the Norwegian research community access to relevant state-of-the-art infrastructures that contributes to and supports research of high quality.