This week, the CancerWatch JA was well represented at #GRELL2026. GRELL, the Group for Cancer Epidemiology and Registration in Latin Language Countries, is the annual meeting bringing together population-based cancer registry experts from across Europe. GRELL is chaired by Claudine Backes, who also leads #CancerWatch‘s Work Package 4 on the long-term sustainability of cancer registration in Europe. This shows the strong ties between the GRELL community and our Joint Action.

Our Work Package 7 team presented their poster: “Strengthening the European Cancer Information System Through Insights from Population-Based Cancer Registry Data”, showcasing how WP7 contributes to improving #ECIS.

The work of WP7 covers four key areas:
– Defining harmonised survival and prevalence indicators for ECIS (T7.1)
– Developing CRATE2, an open-source R tool to calculate those indicators across registries (T7.2)
– Harmonising data from countries with partial cancer registry coverage (T7.3)
– Deep-dive analyses to explore complex epidemiological variables and improve #ECIS data use (T7.4)

The goal: to translate high-quality population-based cancer registry data into comparable, policy-relevant indicators that strengthen the European Cancer Information System, and ultimately support better cancer control across Europe.

Thank you to Elizabeth Van Eycken, Geert Silversmit, Bea Essers, and Laura Botta (WP7) and Max X., Claudine Backes (WP4) and Esteve Rodon Navarro (WP2) for representing CancerWatch at this milestone edition of GRELL!