UCD to Lead €2.1 million European Connected Health Training Programme Focused on Cancer Rehabilitation

CATCH, a new €2.1 million connected health innovative training programme, involving 6 partner organisations from 3 European companies, was formally launched today at University College Dublin (UCD).

CATCH (Cancer: Activating Technology for Connected Health), funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie actions initiative, will provide a unique training and research platform for 8 PhD students, from across Europe, and aims to improve the lives of cancer survivors through rehabilitation.

CATCH, which is led by University College Dublin, includes two other leading universities, Universidad de Deusto (Spain) and University of Southern Denmark, along with progressive companies, Salumedia Tecnologías and Oncoavanze, both from Spain, and the Beacon Hospital, a dedicated Irish healthcare provider.

The world of medical science has for decades, slowly but surely, been winning the war on cancer. In 2007, more than half the European cancer patients diagnosed with one of the more common cancers (e.g. lung, breast, colorectal, prostate) were alive after five years.

However cancer can dramatically affect the ability of individuals to function and their quality of life, long after they have won their own personal battle with cancer.

CATCH is responding to a fundamental requirement for a new health care model. It meets the industry needs through training researchers who can then operate in an inter-disciplinary context across academia, healthcare, and other industry sectors, such as personal sensing, health management, ICT and insurance.

CATCH will embrace all key elements such as technical, social and economic sciences that are required to produce graduates capable of meeting existing, but also future needs in cancer rehabilitation to improve the lives of those affected by cancer.

Professor Brian Caulfield, who leads University College Dublin’s Connected Health Programme and is CATCH project co-ordinator said, “Over the past 10 years, advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment have been ground-breaking. CATCH will join in the fight against cancer and will provide a much needed training and research programme.”

He added, “CATCH is a deep collaboration across academic, business and clinical sectors, but will be patient focused. The interrelated core research projects will address gaps in the knowledge and provide evidence for technology enabled cancer rehabilitation that can be implemented, whilst adhering to the overall Connected Health concept that the patient is at the centre of it all.”

For more informations visit: www.catchitn.eu