1. EURAMED structure
EURAMED is managed through an Executive Board in which all founding members are represented. The president of the organisation is first prepared for her/his duties in a two-years president-elect function. After two years being president, she/he will remain for two additional years as past president in the Executive Board, to guarantee an efficient transition of knowledge and network contacts.
Currently, EURAMED has 3 committees.
- The Membership Committee investigates membership applications. The main selection criterion for becoming a member is having an interest/being active in medical radiation protection research. Individuals, organisations and industry partners are welcome to apply for membership (https://www.euramed.eu/become-a-member).
- The Communications Committee is responsible for advertising EURAMED’s activities and promoting radiation protection research.
- In the Scientific Committee the ongoing research activities are discussed and new initiatives for medical radiation protection research are initiated.
The EURAMED office is hosted by the European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research (EIBIR).
2. EURAMED and MEENAS
EURAMED has expanded its influence by joining the MEENAS (https://eu-meenas.net) group, signing a memorandum of understanding (https://eu-meenas.net/lib/exe/fetch.php/meenas_mou_signed.pdf). The MEENAS umbrella group is a consortium formed by several ionizing radiation research platforms, namely the Multidisciplinary European Low Dose Initiative (MELODI), the European Radiation Dosimetry group (EURADOS), the European Radioecology Alliance (ALLIANCE), the Nuclear and Radiological Emergency Response and Recovery group (NERIS) and the European Network for Social Sciences and Humanities (SHARE). All of them have contributed for years in the design of the priorities in ionizing radiation research, and now EURAMED gives its particular vision, focusing on the translation of the radiation protection research results to hospitals and patients.
3. EURAMED in ongoing European Research Projects
EURAMED currently collaborates in three active projects: MEDIRAD, EURAMED rocc-n-roll and SINFONIA.
- MEDIRAD studies the “Implications of Medical Low Dose Radiation Exposure” and brings together 34 organisations from 14 countries and more than 70 scientists (http://www.medirad-project.eu/).
- EURAMED rocc-n-roll aims to propose a new strategic research agenda in the field of medical radiation protection. It involves 29 partners from 17 countries (https://roccnroll.euramed.eu/).
- SINFONIA will develop novel methodologies to provide a comprehensive risk appraisal for detrimental effects of radiation exposure during the management of lymphoma and brain tumors patients, and 14 partners from 8 countries work together in this project (https://www.sinfonia-appraisal.eu).
EURAMED is also involved in the organisation of the annual European Radiation Protection Week (ERPW), where ongoing radiation protection research of all platforms is presented and future collaborations are discussed.
4. EURAMED and future radiation protection research
Within MEENAS, EURAMED contributed to a partnership proposal for radiation protection research under Horizon Europe. In the latter proposal medical radiation protection is significantly represented, which is highlighted in the following main objectives:
- To innovate in ionising radiation based medical applications combating cancer and other diseases by new and optimised diagnostic and therapeutic approaches allowing better patient outcome and safety;
- To improve scientific understanding of individual radiation response and risk.
Moreover, this partnership strives for collaborations with other partnerships like “ERA for health”, “Personalized medicine”, “Artificial intelligence, data and robotics” and “Metrology”.
The proposal was submitted in January 2021. Recently, the European Council has reached an agreement on the full EURATOM research and training programme, and through our partnership proposal an EU budget for medical radiation protection research for the period 2021-2025 was secured.