F-CRIN: a national clinical research infrastructure platform

20

03

2012

Download the F-CRIN leaflet (976.4 ko)

The French component of the European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (ECRIN), the F-CRIN platform (French Clinical Research Infrastructure Network), is one of the winners of the 2010 "National biology and health infrastructures" call for projects launched by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the Big Loan "Future Investments" program in France. By bringing together all public and private clinical research stakeholders within a single platform, F-CRIN seeks to boost French competitiveness on the international stage by initiating and conducting major multinational clinical trials.

F-CRIN objectives

The F-CRIN platform aims to support researchers and promoters by helping them to meet the new international criteria concerning appeal and effectiveness. By strengthening France's impact in the European ECRIN network, F-CRIN also increases its ability to initiate major multinational clinical trials.
F-CRIN uses joint tools whose potential it reinforces:

  • thematic disease networks enabling French researchers and promoters to carry out ambitious industrial and academic projects at national and international level –from the design through to the recruitment stages – in targeted fields of high scientific and medical potential;
  • joint professional service platforms that can help researchers and promoters manage and analyze major trials.

F-CRIN involves major clinical research operators – whether they are public, such as universities, Inserm and hospital representations, or private like the ARIIS, the Alliance for Research and Innovation in Health Industries. The involvement of universities represented by their association is proof of their interest in clinical research and the participation of their teaching hospital staff.

“There's strength in numbers! With F-CRIN, all of the sector's stakeholders – both public and private – have decided to join forces to identify and support the best of French clinical research" Vincent Diebolt, Operational Director F-CRIN

F-CRIN will step up French competitiveness in targeted fields of high scientific value-added:

  • critically-sized clinical trials, capable of competing at international level to ensure the setup, implementation and analysis of studies – particularly academic research – on diagnostic or therapeutic strategies
  • proof of concept studies in the early stages, especially together with industry.

Project architecture

Eight work packages have been formed that, by working in a coordinated fashion, should have a positive impact on the ability of the most structured French clinical research to exist at European and international level.
These work packages, each coordinated by one or more clinical research experts, are divided into three groups:

  • WPs with an internal purpose: F-CRIN governance,
  • WPs with a support purpose: development of joint tools/points of single contact, training,
  • two WPs with a directly operational and structuring purpose: one to form "service platforms" for assisting researchers and promoters with regard to complex trials; and the other to support "clinical research networks" that can manage a clinical trial right from its design and preparatory stages through to its implementation.

The F-CRIN calendar for action runs over a ten-year period. F-CRIN must act as a driver enabling French clinical research to gain more visibility, become more in demand and therefore gain more recognition at European and international level.

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