The high and growing global burden of cancer urges the need for effective implementation of primary cancer prevention (PCP) programmes targeting modifiable risk factors. However, evidence-based programmes with proven effectiveness under controlled environments often fail when implemented in the real world due to ineffective adaptation and implementation strategies addressing context-specific barriers, leading to programme failures and public health inequities. The PIECES project will develop, assess, and disseminate a cancer-specific methodological implementation framework, the integrated PCP Implementation Toolkit (PCP-IT). PCP-IT will provide an evidence-informed systematic process for (1) identification, selection, and tailoring of PCP programmes, and (2) developing evidence-informed implementation strategies tailored to local barriers and constraints. The PCP-IT will include a comprehensive repository of PCP programmes, their Theories of Change, and materials for systematically adapting the programmes to local needs and cultural constraints. The project involves 16 consortium members and implementation sites from 10 countries of diverse socio-cultural backgrounds and access to up to 77.7 million inhabitants. PIECES provides an ideal naturalistic laboratory to improve and study the up-scaling and implementation of a wide range of primary PCP programmes targeting major risk factors: tobacco, alcohol, low physical activity, HPV infection, sun exposure, and diet. A multi-site case comparison study will be conducted to assess and optimise implementation outcomes. An in-depth realist evaluation using various sociological theories will be conducted to explain the processes by which the outcomes are achieved. The consortium will employ a high-level external Advisory Board with renowned experts, facilitate continuous engagement with stakeholders, and align with the EU and relevant scientific societies to ensure the future continuity of both the repository and PCP-IT. This action is part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on ‘Prevention and early detection’.

SoNAR-Global is a global consortium led by social scientists specializing in emerging infectious diseases (EID) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It will build a sustainable international social science network to engage the active participation of social sciences and promote complementarity and synergy in the governance of prevention and response to infectious threats and AMR. As such, it will become an integral part of emergency response. Partnering with major international and regional institutions, it will lead activities through a program that builds governance from the ground up. It will: • Develop an open-access platform to support the SoNAR-Global activities and to share them broadly. • Adapt, test, and evaluate vulnerability assessment tools on the ground and engagement models to facilitate collaboration across multiple stakeholders. • Create, pilot, and evaluate curricula for training social scientists in preparedness and response to infectious threats and through curricular development and piloting social science knowledge of infectious threats among non-social sciences actors.

CARE brings together distinguished scientists and highly representative networks in the European region, including Russia, in the fight against HIV/TB/HCV. CARE research objectives are based on already established European cohort networks with extensive and longitudinal data and/or sample collections. Together with new data and sample collections and cohorts created during the project, CARE will produce high-level researchoutputs during the two years of the project timeframe. The specific short term objectives are to: ● Discover and validate novel soluble biomarkers of MDR-TB treatment success and of pulmonary TB. ● Explore host genetic mechanisms of susceptibility to extrapulmonary TB. ● Analyse genotype to phenotype correlations in MDR-TB and develop a decision making support tool. ● Define epidemiology and pathways of drug-resistant HIV, including their relationship with HIV subtypes and TB coinfection to support an evidence-based introduction of INSTIs as part of first line antiretroviral therapy. ● Discover and validate host genomic variants influencing susceptibility to contracting AIDS and serious non-AIDS clinical events and adverse reactions to drugs. ● Derive best practice recommendations for DAA prioritisation strategies for HCV treatment. The longer-term objective of CARE is to implement a research infrastructure that allows the expansion of activities beyond the funding frame, permitting the partners to share technology, protocols, structured data collections and knowledge. Finally, CARE activities include realization of recommendations and intervention plans, communication to the stakeholders, dissemination and training activities in order to develop and distribute the highest expertise and competence throughout the European region for the containment of the epidemics.CARE is fully in line with the call topic and addresses all its subtopics. It involves a recognised Russian partner coordinating 5 top level institutions covering the regions of Russia.

BE READY NOW aims to implement the European Partnership for Pandemic Preparedness. This Partnership will gather 74 organisations from 24 countries, including public funding agencies, public health institutes, clinical networks, ministries and research infrastructures active in pandemic preparedness. This consortium is aligned around the vision of building a European research and innovation ecosystem optimally prepared for future health crises caused by infectious diseases, therefore contributing to the objectives of the European Research Area (ERA). To achieve its ambitious vision, BE READY NOW will align stakeholders in pandemic preparedness around shared research priorities to foster a coordinated and efficient research landscape, producing sustainable scientific, health, and socio-economic benefits. Through Joint Transnational Calls, BE READY NOW will help close critical research gaps covering the whole spectrum of pandemic preparedness research (including basic research, diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines, and public health interventions), through an interdisciplinary approach. It will therefore directly address the goals of Horizon Europe’s Cluster 1 Health. Building on the infrastructures, projects and initiatives supported by the European Commission and Member States, BE READY NOW will establish and sustain an "ever-warm" research ecosystem, capable of pivoting swiftly in response to emerging health threats. This ecosystem will include an innovative, ever-warm EU-wide network of networks of clinical research sites. In the longer term, BE READY NOW will improve the EU's capacity in the areas of prevention, preparedness, surveillance, risk assessment and response to infectious diseases, ensuring the international visibility of the EU as a recognised actor for pandemic preparedness research and response, and providing resilience for citizens and health systems beyond the Partnership’s duration.