CancerWatch builds stronger foundations for better cancer data across Europe.
Cancer registries remain the gold standard for understanding how cancer affects populations. The rigorous methods they use to collect and standardise data lead to high quality information, but can be time consuming and resource intensive.

Presenting our vision on population-based registries, AI integration, and the European Health Data Space framework.

The Centro de Oncología dos Açores (COA) proudly represented CancerWatch at the 4th S3 Summit in São Miguel. Our mission was to highlight the critical role of the Azores in strengthening the European cancer data landscape, specifically through the harmonization of regional registries to feed into the European Cancer Information System (ECIS).

At the IARC@60 conference, discussions emphasized the critical role of high-quality data in translating cancer research into effective, evidence-based policy. In this context, the CancerWatch JA team presented a poster titled “Population-Based Cancer Registries are the Pillars of Cancer Control in Europe: Ensuring Sustainability in a Changing Data Landscape”.

Our Scientific Coordinator, Gijs Geleijnse, represented CancerWatch at the IARC@60 “Cancer Research into Action” conference in Lyon. During the “Cancer Surveillance in the 21st Century” session, he presented “CancerWatch – for timely, high quality European cancer registry data,” highlighting our efforts to unite 91 organizations across 29 European countries in building a sustainable, automated, and high-quality infrastructure for population-based cancer registries.

CancerWatch actively participated in the GRELL 2026 annual meeting, highlighting the strong ties between the Joint Action and Europe’s population-based cancer registry experts. The event underscored our collaborative efforts in sustainability, led by Claudine Backes (Chair of GRELL and Leader of CancerWatch WP4).

We are proud to share that the CancerWatch survey phase has officially concluded, marking a significant step forward for the Joint Action.

Europe has set itself an ambitious goal: to reduce the cancer burden for patients, families, and health systems across the EU. Through Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, billions of euros are being invested in prevention, early detection, treatment, and survivorship.

The subtasks survival (7.1.1) and prevalence (7.1.2) started with a kick-off meeting that was well-attended by the active participants and observers.