We have completed – and I dare say, successfully – the first phase of the NICR project. Through our joint work, we have created a functional consortium, defined shared rules, created organisational support structures, and improved research facilities. But the core part of this project did not end by handing in the final report. We are entering a three-year period of obligatory sustainability: now we shall see whether the new consortium, National Institute for Cancer Research, survives.
Sustainability is not just a formal step. It is a commitment to further years of joint work, to sustained support of excellence, and to meeting national and international expectations. We will need to meet and report predefined indicators, maintain the functionality of management, and demonstrate that the consortium is not just an administrative phantom but a living, integrated framework of collaboration. These obligations stem both from the conditions of the EXCELES NPO project and from the partnership agreement to which we have jointly committed ourselves.
The period of sustainability of also an opportunity to show that a joint strategy has a real impact. NICR was not built as a temporary initiative: its point has always been to link the key institutions of Czech science, share state-of-the-art technologies, data, and expertise, and thus improve the competitiveness of Czech cancer research in the European context. The results we had so far presented show that this model works: new projects are designed across institutions, data are integrated into shared databases, and expert teams cooperate across disciplines.
In the coming months, we expect that the Ministry of Health will announce a call for support of sustainability of national authorities created within the EXCELES NPO programme (Subprogramme 4 ‘Support of national authorities in priority areas of healthcare research’), which would be administered by the Czech Health Research Council. If this indeed take place and our application (submitted based on so far successfully met indicators) is approved, NICR will receive the support needed to achieve continuity, that is, for mutual coordination of partners, operation of the basic managerial and communication mechanisms, and support of activities of the ISAB and other instruments that hold the consortium together. From the perspective of the provider, these will not be new projects but merely maintenance and development of the cooperation infrastructure which we had built.
At this point, cooperation between research groups and their administrative support will be of crucial importance. We will still need close coordination with the managers of individual partners, especially in terms of ongoing collection and reporting of indicators during the sustainability period. Without it, we cannot meet the conditions set by the provider. This is also the place to remind ourselves that our work has an impact also outside the scientific community. This applies both to our research results, synergy in scientific work, shared expertise, and shared technological and data facilities, and to our ‘third’ role, that is, the role we play in spreading awareness, involvement of the public, and support of relevant social and technological priorities. Our long-term aim is to gain the trust of the public, of the providers, and the state administration, and this trust is one of the key pillars of NICR’s continued existence.
Strategically, our aim is to make sure that NICR becomes a stable part of Czech research infrastructure. That would strengthen our position in negotiating future support and enabled a more systematic planning of allocation of resources by the state. We therefore do not see sustainability as a merely temporary condition but as a bridge to long-term stability. Continuity, reliability, and the ability to move together in a shared direction are therefore decisive at this point. What we had built is valuable: it has a scientific, institutional, and reputational value. It would be a great pity if our ‘brand’ was weakened at a moment when its effect is starting to mature and fully bear fruit.
In short: We continue! Thank you for all your hard work done so far, for your professionalism and willingness to cooperate across institutions. Continuity and reliability of cooperation are, at this stage, decisive. Moreover, quite subjectively, the evident dramatic increase in results achieved thanks to cooperation, which clearly illustrates integration leading to spontaneous cooperation (as opposed to just multilayered parallelism), framed by collegiality and mutuality across the entire consortium – all of that is just really great!
Aleksi Šedo, Director of NICR