Bridging the Research Gap in the field of Illicit Drug in the European Union European Commission Con

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Bridging the Research Gap in the field of Illicit
Drug in the European UnionEuropean Commission
Conference24-25 September 2009, Brussels
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1. Background for the study1.3 The research
situation in Europe

• Fragmented and diffuse
• ? national responsibility for research, many
  disciplines
• Accessibility problems
• ? 23 languages
• Performance deficits (publications)1

1) Journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence,
2004-2007 2) Germany, Italy, Netherlands, UK 3)
Source Ritter, 2008
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2. Scope and purpose of the study

• To map and analyse the current state of research
  activities on demand and supply reduction
• To map and analyse research structures at MS and
  
• at EU level
• To briefly compare with the situation in
  Australia, Canada and the USA
• To identify strength, weaknesses and gaps
• To assess options for improvements

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Research areas and fields of projects funded by
the EC
1) Shaded areas indicate the most prominent
research areas according to the number of
projects 2) No eligible projects funded by DG
TREN and DG ENTR were found 3) Figures derived
from Table 3.4 (only MS funded projects).
Others not considered in the calculation of
percentages. 4) The full list can be found in
App. 4.2 Shaded areas indicate the most prominent
research areas according to the number of
projects.
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Nationally funded European projects and networks

• The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and
  Other Drugs (ESPAD) is a cross-sectional research
  project on adolescent substance use that is
  conducted every four years.
• The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children
  (HBSC) study is a collaborative cross-national
  project on patterns of health including substance
  use behaviours among young people. HBSC, which is
  also conducted every four years, was initiated in
  1982 and adopted by the World Health Organization
  as a collaborative project.
• The International Cannabis Need for Treatment
  (INCANT) study is a multi-site transnational
  randomised controlled trial (RCT) that evaluates
  the effectiveness of Multidimensional Family
  Treatment in cannabis use disorders. The project
  started in 2003 with four participating MS
  (Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands).
• In contrast to EC funded network projects all
  studies conducted within these networks are
  nationally funded. Despite a common research
  concept and overall organization, the
  implementation and funding lies within the sole
  responsibility of each participating country.

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Research co-ordination and networks

• In countries such as Germany, Spain and others,
  where specific research initiatives have been
  instituted, there is evidence that such projects
  increase the capacity, networks and overall
  quantity of research and they enhance the skill
  capacity considerably.
• There appears to have been a very substantial
  convergence in approach to drug policy in most MS
  which enables experience within different
  countries to be constructively shared. Moreover,
  it enables a firmer platform for basic and
  applied research to impact on future drug policy.
  
• An example of such influence is the treatment of
  opioid-dependence, where projects conducted in
  France, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland,
  Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the UK all provide
  research data that assists in formulating
  treatment policy at a national level.
• Our analyses indicate a lack of well-established
  and coordinated research efforts on illicit drugs
  in most MS.

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EC and international funding sources

• In addition to the national funding activities
  for addiction research, the funding by the EC or
  other European or international bodies in Europe
  plays a modest financial role but carries status
  and is focus for many of the countries where the
  overall available research resources are limited.
  
• Most of the international resource appears to be
  to support communication and cooperation but
  occasionally it also supports data collection and
  analysis.
• Some of the projects are action based projects
  where little primary research is undertaken
• Other NGO and private philanthropic organisations
  play a limited role in research funding of
  addictions research in Europe with a few minor
  exceptions
• To the best of our knowledge the Pharmaceutical
  Industry has undertaken very limited basic and
  applied research in the field of addiction drug
  therapy in Europe

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DG Research Technology and Development

• DG Research, Technology and Development (DG RTD)
• DG RTD provides the major research funding
  programmes and instruments (the Framework
  Programmes). Since their launch in 1984, these
  programmes have played a lead role in
  multidisciplinary research and co-operative
  activities in Europe and beyond.
• Through the successive programmes the scale of
  drug-related projects has increased with some
  moderate large budget projects in the 6th
  Framework. 7th Framework Programme (FP7)
  continues that task, and is both larger and more
  comprehensive than earlier programmes.
• Running from 2007 to 2013, the programme has a
  budget of 53.2 billion Euro over its seven-year
  lifespan, the largest funding allocation yet for
  such programmes.
• This is a very impressive and highly structured
  basis for scientific research funding with the
  EU. The Community Information and Research
  Development Information Service (CORDIS) website
  provides a comprehensive description of the full
  range of activities (www.cordis.europa.eu)

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• The FP7 is also the main actual source of funding
  for drug-related research at the cross national
  EU level. It bundles all research-related EU
  initiatives together under a common roof and
  plays an important role in reaching the goals of
  growth, competitiveness and employment along
  with a new Competitiveness and Innovation
  Framework Programme (CIP), education and training
  programmes, and structural and cohesion funds for
  regional convergence and competitiveness. It is
  also a key pillar for ERA.
• The broad objectives have been grouped into four
  categories Cooperation, Ideas, People and
  Capacities. For each type of objective, there
  is a specific programme corresponding to the main
  areas of EU research policy. All specific
  programmes work together to promote and encourage
  the creation of European poles of (scientific)
  excellence.
• The Ideas programme has the broad aim to
  foster the next generation of high quality
  researchers in Europe and through the European
  Research Council aims to develop the leaders in
  the field of research. Under the ERA-NET scheme,
  national and regional authorities identify
  research programmes they wish to coordinate or
  open up mutually. The participants in these
  actions are therefore programme 'owners'
  (typically ministries or regional authorities
  defining research programmes) or programme
  'managers' (such as research councils or other
  research funding agencies managing research
  programmes).

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Links of Framework Programme to MS research
strategies

• In each country there is a specified link person
  at governmental level to assist researchers in MS
  to engage with the EC 7th RTD Framework
  Programme. These National Contact Points have the
  function of encouraging and supporting
  researchers to participate in the framework
  application procedures. They are not subject
  specific but are an important first point of
  contact for researchers with the overall process.
  Future work might assist addiction researchers in
  becoming more familiar with such local contacts.
• The EU wide process would be significantly
  assisted if the MS national research strategies
  had a well coordinated approach and had clear
  priorities set. There is substantial room for
  improvement in national drug research strategies.

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Drug-related research funding in past EC RTD
Framework Programmes

• In the EC 6th RTD Framework Programme in the
  2003-2005 Major Disease Research Projects, an
  integrated project lasting 60 months with an EC
  contribution of over 8 m Euro was funded on the
  genomics, mechanisms and treatment of addiction.
  This was a public private partnership project
  aimed at exploring the relationship of genetic
  vulnerability exploring the role of genes in
  complex diseases. The countries involved were the
  UK, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary and
  Iceland1.
• In the 2005-2006 Major Diseases Research
  Projects, a further neurobiological project
  titled Imagen was supported, with a 60 month
  timeframe and a contribution of 10 million .
  This is a multicentre functional and structural
  genetic-neuroimaging study of a cohort of 2000
  adolescents who will be followed for 4 years. The
  countries involved are Germany, France, the UK,
  Ireland and Norway with 17 research centres
  collaborating on this project2.
• Two projects within the Crime Prevention
  Initiative were part of the European Form for
  public safety and looked at aspects of drugs and
  crime, in an overall perspective on crime and
  deviance. This work appears to be a process of
  consultation and discussion and in the reports
  reviewed the drugs aspect of the work was
  limited3.
• The specific programme for TRANSPORT forms part
  of the first activity of the 4th Framework
  Programme within the sub area "Transport", and
  builds on the experience and achievements of the
  first phase of the EURET programme under the 2nd
  Framework Programme. Two major projects related
  to drugs and driving have been supported through
  this programme, ROSITA and DRUID (Driving Under
  the Influence of Alcohol or other Drugs). This is
  a multicentre collaborative project with some
  specific research aspects, covering drugs.
• 1 www.surrey.ac.uk/genaddict 2
  www.imagen-europe.com 3 www.fesu.org/index.php?i
  d693

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Transnational projects

• The range of transnational projects varies and
  some have substantial research components, while
  others have very limited research. If one looks
  at the overall expenditure on projects during the
  period of interest approximately 2001 to 2007, it
  is estimated that overall expenditure on
  drug-related transnational projects was 58
  million , with the largest expenditure from DG
  RTD 28 million, additionally 19.3 million within
  the TRANSPORT programme of DG RTD, DG SANCO 5.6
  million, and DG JLS 5 million.
• Within these projects there were six main
  countries participating with drug-related
  projects, as measured by the actual number of
  projects Germany, Netherlands, Spain, the UK,
  France, but also some involvement in Greece,
  Belgium, Italy, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia
  and Romania. It is not possible at this stage to
  determine the relative overall quality and impact
  of the individual projects.

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Relevance of EU funding sources

• The relevance of EU funding sources in
  drug-related research is valued differently
  depending on the particular national research
  funding situation and probably the amount of the
  drug problem in the relevant country.
• The need for EU funding is accentuated mainly in
  the Central and Eastern European MS as Poland or
  the Czech Republic. There is a strong support
  from the government for applications at EU level.
• The German governmental key informants place an
  increasing importance on EU funding is, whereas
  the key informants from the scientific community
  estimate a minor relevance of EU funding for
  German drug-related research.
• The Dutch informants emphasize the possibility of
  efficient use of scarce research resources when a
  topic is subject to high-quality study in more
  than one cultural and economic context. They lay
  stress on the positive effect of co-operations
  with EU partners in joint projects, which could
  generate a valuable learning about programme
  effectiveness, delivering questions and avoiding
  of duplication of efforts.
• The UK informants reported on the need for MS
  cooperation at an early stage to assist in the
  development of priorities and to enable
  constructive feedback to the EU commission on
  future research priorities based on multimember
  state consensus and clarity of scientific
  opportunity.

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Research structures of other organizations in
Europe

• World Health Organisation Europe
• Pompidou Group
• European Monitoring Centre
• United Nations Office of Drug Control

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4. Results4.7 Research activities compared to
Australia, Canada, and USA

• Similar strengths and weaknesses in the different
  research areas, except
• Strong US basic research
• Strong Australian and Canadian policy research
• Few cross-cultural research activities between
  these systems
• Strong impact of strategic development of
  research infrastructure with major long term
  research outputs in Austalia and US