Our role in beating cancer globally

To answer why cancer patients from certain countries tend to have better health outcomes than others, the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership (ICBP) quantifies international variances in cancer survival, incidence and mortality across high-income countries and explores the critical health system factors that influence these variations. These insights provide evidence for country-specific policy change for better patient outcomes.

In 2020, we partnered with the US National Cancer Institute to launch Cancer Grand Challenges: a global community of diverse teams uniting to drive radical progress against cancer. The initiative builds on the success of our Grand Challenge, which launched in 2015 and currently supports 7 world-class teams across 9 countries with transformational awards.

As part of our International Cancer Prevention Programme, we support research partners in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) to cultivate evidence and influence policy. By doing so, we provide governments with the tools needed to implement tobacco control measures.

The International Rare Cancers Initiative (IRCI) supports disease-focused working groups to boost the progress of new treatments for patients with rare cancers. The initiative aim to maximise international collaboration to facilitate the progress and impact of rare cancer trials. IRCI is a joint initiative with participation from UK, Europe, USA, Australia and Japan, providing a unique platform for collaboration and knowledge sharing.

We have partnered with 5 world-leading centres across the UK and US to launch the International Alliance for Cancer Early Detection (ACED) programme. This £55 million collaboration will tackle some of the biggest challenges in early detection, an important but underserved area of clinical need. By sharing expertise, we will develop new tools to revolutionise early detection technologies, as well as support current research to improve survival outcomes across the globe.

As part of our International Cancer Prevention programme, we are committed to reducing cervical cancer incidence in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). We are working to achieve this by generating evidence and campaigning tools to support policymakers’ and advocates’ efforts to establish nationwide HPV vaccination programmes and secure high levels of uptake.