Cancer Watch: improving the quality and timeliness of data for more effective cancer control

Duration: 36 months (1.9.2025 – 31.8.2028)
Coordinator: Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH)
Funding: EU4Health Programme (Grant Agreement CR-g-24-40) and Slovenian Ministry of Health 
Lead organization in Slovenia: Institute of Oncology Ljubljana, Slovenia
Lead researcher at the Institute of Oncology Ljubljana: Prof. Vesna Zadnik, MD, PhD

Project website: CancerWatch
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cancerwatch-joint-action/posts/?feedView=all 

CancerWatch is a European Union Joint Action project aimed at improving the quality, completeness, and timeliness of data from population-based cancer registries (PBCRs) across Europe. The project supports the goals of the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, which emphasizes the use of data and digital technologies to better understand and reduce the burden of cancer.

The project is coordinated by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and involves 92 partners from 29 countries, including 58 cancer registries.

Data collected by cancer registries within the European Network of Cancer Registries (ENCR) are crucial for monitoring cancer trends, supporting policy and research, and powering the European Cancer Information System (ECIS) as well as the future infrastructure of the European Health Data Space (EHDS).

Currently, the quality, scope, and timeliness of data vary between countries. Therefore, CancerWatch is improving registry operations, introducing digital methods for data capture and harmonized standards for quality assessment, and enabling the development of cancer burden indicators that will be made available through ECIS. Better-quality and more up-to-date data will also benefit the European Cancer Inequalities Registry (ECIR), which helps identify inequalities in cancer prevention, treatment, and outcomes across EU Member States.

The Division of Oncology, Epidemiology and Cancer Registry at the Institute of Oncology Ljubljana participates in several work packages of CancerWatch, most actively in Work Package 5: Registry Operations and Digitalization, where it leads Task T5.1.1: Mapping of current PBCRs in Europe.