Background
Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan calls for an EU-supported Cancer Screening Scheme to ensure high performance, quality, and equity of cancer screening programmes across Member States (MS). The Council Recommendation on cancer screening further strengthens expectations for organised population-based approaches, quality assurance, governance, data systems, monitoring, and sustainability. Alongside these developments, heterogeneity remains across Europe in screening coverage, programme organisation, implementation capacity, data availability, and long-term sustainability, contributing to unequal access to early detection and avoidable disparities in cancer outcomes.
 
Objectives
Joint Action EUCanScreen supports MS in implementing European cancer screening recommendations. The overall goal is to reduce the burden of cancer in Europe by promoting effective, high-quality, equitable, and sustainable screening programmes aligned with European policy and evidence-based standards.
 
Methods
EUCanScreen applies a structured, multi-level implementation approach. The consortium involves 97 partners from 29 European countries. Activities focus on: (1) consolidation of organised screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers and preparedness for lung, prostate, and gastric screening; (2) strengthening governance and sustainability; (3) improving data systems and performance monitoring; and (4) promoting equity, capacity building, and cross-country collaboration. Sustainability is addressed cross-cuttingly through assessment and prioritisation tools, context-adapted governance models, a European cancer screening network, and engagement of a Governmental Advisory Board (GAB) to strengthen policy uptake and long-term commitment.
 
Results
Project governance and coordination mechanisms are operational, supported by regular consortium, work package, and committee meetings and agreed internal procedures, including a signed Consortium Agreement. A dissemination strategy and action plan have been developed, alongside a project website, social media channels, branded templates, and a stakeholder mapping database (>299 stakeholders), with dissemination monitoring supported by KPIs and periodic reporting.
For evaluation, a logical model and evaluation plan have been completed, and key performance indicators defined; detailed data collection plans are under development.
Sustainability-related work has advanced through a scoping/systematic review on governance and sustainability and the assessment of existing sustainability frameworks and tools; adaptation of a sustainability assessment tool is underway. A consolidated country survey on sustainability and governance has been launched, with preliminary analyses ongoing. The GAB has been established, with a kick-off meeting held in May 2025 and subsequent meetings to endorse key operational documents.
To strengthen monitoring and data infrastructure, surveys on data availability and barriers have been conducted, initial common data models for breast, cervical, and colorectal screening have been implemented, and a standardised analysis workflow has been tested across multiple partner institutions. A tool assessing barriers to screening has been developed and introduced in pilot countries, with data collection initiated.
 
Conclusions / Implications
EUCanScreen is building the governance, sustainability, data, and capacity foundations needed for consistent implementation of European cancer screening recommendations. By combining sustainability tools, monitoring infrastructure, stakeholder engagement, and cross-country learning, the Joint Action is positioned to support continuous improvement of screening programmes and contribute to durable impact beyond its lifetime.