Major Activities

This section holds information about major activities being undertaken by JPND.

An important first objective of JPND was the drafting of a Strategic Research Agenda, also known as the 2012 Research Strategy, which defines the strategic and scientific priorities that would benefit from co-ordination at the European level. During 2017-18, the Research Strategy was updated and renamed the Research and Innovation Strategy.

JPND executes its strategy through its Operating Plan, which entails a series of recommendations for the formulation and implementation of JPND strategy, including future calls for proposals and other joint activities.

On December 4, 2014, JPND announced a major new cohesive action with the European Commission entitled ‘JPco-fuND’. This initiative launched a joint transnational call for proposals in January 2015 aimed at supporting international research collaborations in three JPND priority areas: Longitudinal Cohort Approaches; Advanced Experimental Models; and Risk and Protective Factors.

On November 1, 2015, JPND began a new concerted support action with Horizon2020 called ‘JPsustaiND’. The goal of this initiative is to establish a dedicated structure responsible for JPND management and implementation over the long term.

Other Major Activities

A parallel research initiative operating under the umbrella of JPND is the Centres of Excellence in Neurodegeneration (COEN) Initiative, which aims to focus expertise within existing investments in recognised biomedical centres of excellence to address some of the immediate barriers to progress and wider collaborative working within these centres.

JPND has an ongoing programme of actions aimed at encouraging participating countries to agree research strategies to tackle neurodegenerative diseases at the national level.

A JPND mapping exercise of research in neurodegenerative diseases has been conducted to obtain an overview of the current scale and scope among JPND countries. The process of monitoring and evaluation of  JPND has already begun.

As part of the JUMPAHEAD action, a monitoring and evaluation framework has been designed. The framework includes a set of performance indicators which will be monitored over the lifetime of the JPND.