Regional, national or cross-border CCIs should ideally bring together all oncological prevention, screening and care and research structures (universities, hospital, research institutes, screening facilities etc.) within their scope. These structures are interfacing and the foundation of the CCI should be the patient and citizen’s needs. A coordination board should represent all CCI members and public authorities/agency.
Comprehensiveness: In addition to the researchers, the interdisciplinary/ interprofessional disciplines along the patient pathway (in hospitals and primary care) and patient representatives, other stakeholders should be included in the CCI.
Structure: According to different tasks the CCI consists of different collaborative structures (e.g. network(s) of clinical research, network (s) of tumour-specific care) that need their specific coordinating structure. The different layers of collaborative structures can overlap as people and institutions are fulfilling multiple functions.
The scope of a CCI can be adopted according to country-specific characteristics.
The term “CCI” refers to cooperation of institutions within the scope of the CCI. The CCI is not necessarily meant as an official institution or an organizational structure with command-and-control mechanisms.
With the term CCI is meant “Participating independent institutions of the CCI”.