Palliative care in projects funded by the European Union: when research becomes change – Part I




The roots of a European commitment: the projects that have built the present

SIMONE VERONESE

Palliative care physician, Head of Research at Fondazione FARO (Turin), and Vice President of EAPC.

Received on July 14, 2026

In the previous contribution, I described the EAPC as a European community of professionals, researchers and national associations engaged in the development of palliative care. A community that produces knowledge, encourages discussion and contributes to the definition of shared standards. But there is another dimension that deserves attention: its role in European research and innovation projects.

In recent years, the EAPC has become a stable partner of numerous projects funded by the European Union, in particular under the Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ programs, assuming a function that goes far beyond that of a simple scientific society. The association acts as a bridge between research, clinical practice, patients, caregivers and policy makers, promoting the transfer of knowledge and the implementation of results in health systems.

The current presence of the EAPC in European research programmes does not come out of nowhere. On the contrary, it is the result of more than fifteen years of participation in large initiatives funded by the European Union that have helped define many of the knowledge, standards and tools used today in the clinical practice of palliative care.

Already in the era of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), the EAPC was involved in some of the most important European collaborative projects dedicated to palliative care.

Among these, PRISMA (Reflecting the Positive Diversities of European Priorities for Research and Measurement in End-of-Life Care), a vast pan-European initiative involving over thirty countries with the aim of harmonizing research and measurement of outcomes in end-of-life care, certainly deserves a mention. The work developed within PRISMA contributed decisively to the subsequent elaboration of the EAPC White Paper on outcome measurement, still today one of the most influential references for the evaluation of the quality of palliative care.

In the same period, OPCARE9 was developed, a project dedicated to optimizing research and assistance in the last days of life. The initiative fostered the construction of international collaborations and helped improve the standardization of clinical protocols for cancer patients in the terminal stages of the disease. The issue of care in the last days of life, which is now central to palliative care, also owes a lot to the work produced by this European consortium.

Particularly relevant were the EURO-IMPACT and IMPACT projects, which respectively addressed the issue of the strategic development of palliative care in Europe and that of the definition of quality indicators.

EURO-IMPACT represented one of the most important European training and research networks in the field. In addition to training young researchers, the project contributed to the production of a historic political declaration calling governments and health systems to the responsibility of ensuring high-quality palliative care in a rapidly ageing society.

In parallel, IMPACT (Implementation of Quality Indicators in Palliative Care Study) focused on the development and implementation of quality indicators intended to assess and improve the organisation of palliative care in patients with cancer and dementia. Many of the approaches used today to monitor the quality of services have their roots in those pioneering works.

More recently, under the Horizon 2020 programme, the EAPC has contributed to projects that have opened up new perspectives on the role of digital technologies and the management of complex symptoms.

Among these is MyPal, an initiative that explored the use of digital platforms and electronic Patient Reported Outcomes to improve symptom monitoring, clinical communication and quality of life of cancer and haematological patients, adults and paediatrics. The experience gained in MyPal has laid the foundations for many of the current reflections on the integration of digital technologies in palliative care.

Finally, Palliative Sedation (PalSed), which recently ended after five years of activity, deserves a special place. The project represented one of the most important European research programs dedicated to palliative sedation for refractory symptoms at the end of life. Through a rigorous international consensus methodology, the consortium supported the revision and update of the EAPC framework on palliative sedation, culminating in the publication of the new European recommendations. This is a particularly effective example of how participation in European projects can be directly translated into reference documents capable of guiding international clinical practice.

Looking back at these projects, a common element emerges: none of them has limited itself to the production of scientific publications. Each has contributed to creating professional networks, developing skills, training young researchers and building the scientific capital on which many of the European initiatives currently underway are based. In this sense, the projects active today represent not a starting point, but the natural development of a path that began many years ago.