The public-private partnership, READI, seeks to help clinical studies (CS) to finally serve the complete general population, and therefore more patients. To date CS have struggled to recruit and retain participants from diverse backgrounds and communities, such as marginalized or disadvantaged groups (e.g., sexual, gender, age, cultural, and socioeconomic cohorts). The resulting knowledge gaps entrench or increase health disparities. The READI consortium strives to tackle these challenges by fostering a more cohesive and integrated CS ecosystem for underserved (US) and underrepresented (UR) communities. It will actively connect all key stakeholders who can facilitate access to a wide range of patient populations. It will provide these stakeholders with the necessary tools, training programs, and approaches essential for the recruitment and retention of US/UR patients in CS. In addition, it will design, build and implement a digital platform which is patient-centred, sustainable, open and innovative. This will foster improved access to CS information and READI tools, while also supporting patient connections with the created communities. Finally, at least 4 CS will be used for testing the effectiveness of the developed tools and approaches. READI has a three-fold objective: to help US/UR communities overcome CS participation barriers (e.g., lack of information/awareness, mistrust, poor communication, geographic limitations, prejudice), which in turn will improve research of many diseases and conditions, preventative care and treatment effectiveness in different demographic groups, and better serve society. READI’s success will draw from its interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder, consortium composition of 73 organizations from 18 countries, with key expertise in drug development and CS (design and operations), engagement strategies for US/UR populations, digital platform development, training and capability building initiatives, effective communication and dissemination, long-term sustainability, ethics and regulatory affairs.

The European Patients' Academy on Therapeutic Innovation (EUPATI) IMI project resulted in a number of key outputs for the field of patient engagement. The core activities continue running until 2019 under a PPP consortium under an EPF programme focusing on the Patient Expert Training Course, the multilingual public Toolbox, and the EUPATI National Platforms Network. It is imperative that these pillars that support the patient engagement landscape exist in the medium- and long-term to address the growing field of patient engagement. Further investment is needed to develop sustainable models of collaboration to ensure this, and put into place the infrastructure required for these to work, building on those already established under IMI-EUPATI.

Ten years from now, jobs will be more knowledge and skills-intensive than ever before. Globalisation and technological advances indicate that there will be changes in sectoral structure and demand for new types of skills we are not even currently anticipating. Currently only 30% of all doctoral graduates currently stay in academia with the remaining 70% seeking employment outside the academic setting, for example in industry and government . It is therefore clear that these graduates possess many of the required skills for purposeful employment outside academia. A gap has been identified in that current doctoral curricula do not foster big thinkers and creative problem-solvers, graduate attributes that society needs. There is a growing need to re-imagine a PhD education that incentivises doctoral students to engage with research consumers, not only within their discipline, but also, across other disciplines and sectors to have real social impact for an improved society. At a professional and research level, international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral networks are on the increase. Such collaborative doctoral programs can assist the knowledge society in finding innovative ways of approaching the world’s problems by asking creative questions and finding creative solutions within multiple employment contexts. To date, there is a lack of research in the area of the interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral doctoral education and the question remains: how do we best design these programmes to ensure that the PhD students’ develop into big thinkers? The overall aim of CHAMELONS is to develop a range of interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral and international modules which are designed to broaden the skills of PhD graduates and improve their employability in academic and non-academic environments.