Every action the European Heart Network (EHN) undertakes aims to achieve its mission: to prevent and reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD).

To establish its operational objectives and construct its work programme for 2018, EHN has scanned the EU policy horizon and consulted widely with its members.

EU policy areas upon which we will act include sustainable development, common agriculture policy and trade. We aim to inject consideration of CVD/chronic diseases into these areas to help achieve SDG goal 3.4 and the WHA 25x25 targets.

A major focus in 2018 is implementation of EHN’s policy recommendations contained in its paper “Transforming European food and drink policies for cardiovascular health”.

EHN is a closely-knit member organisation and has, consequently, planned a series of workshops and seminars to strengthen its members' capacities and provide knowledge-exchange opportunities for them. EHN will also strengthen its own operations and continue to ensure good governance.

EHN’s near-to-final 2019-2023 strategy encompasses three pillars (general objectives): I-prevent avoidable CVD; II-strengthen the support for people with CVD; III-reinforce CVD research. These pillars are supported by horizontal objectives and our 2018 work programme includes, notably, an operational objective to ensure a framework of strong cooperation with institutional as well as non-governmental, like-minded organisations working to promote health and reduce risk factors.

In conclusion, we believe that the 10 operational objectives and activities that we have selected for 2018 will contribute to achieve the general and specific objectives set out in our Framework Programme Application of June 2017. We believe that, collectively and albeit in the longer term, they will help address the large inequalities due to CVD in the EU and thus provide substantial EU added value.

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EPHA’s proposal for a Specific Grant Agreement (SGA) 2019 has been designed to be as coherent as possible with EPHA’s 2018-2021 Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA). It provides a problem analysis for the activities proposed, taking into account current developments and evidence that are influencing public health.

The proposal defines the 2019 operational SMART objectives in each priority area and how they relate to the multiannual objectives outlined in the FPA. Each 2019 objective is broken down into concrete activities, milestones and deliverables.

In line with the FPA, EPHA is seeking funding to continue working in eight thematic priority areas: prevention of chronic NCDs, access to affordable medicines, antimicrobial resistance, digital health, healthy trade policy, improving access to healthcare for disadvantaged groups, financing for public health, and capacity building. One of the main differences between the 2019 SGA proposal and previous years is that more emphasis will be placed on establishing synergies between these areas. This will enable EPHA to be more results-oriented by fostering cross-fertilisation of ideas and action, strengthening the evidence base and working effectively as a network through our diverse membership. A strong focus is placed on ensuring transfer of knowledge between the EU and national level to support the priorities of the 3rd Health Programme and the European Commission, and to emphasise the added value of EU health policymaking.

Moreover, the proposal describes the planning and implementation of EPHA’s Work Programme, including the resources required to accomplish it (staff and budget), the target audience(s) for each activity and how deliverables will be disseminated. It also shows how the work will be evaluated, with indicators provided for each objective. The final part explains how EPHA’s operational and financial management structure supports the successful delivery, with a detailed budget accompanying the proposal.

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EPHA's 2020 SGA work programme will build on the activities implemented in 2018 - 2019 with a view to attaining the objectives outlined in the 2018-2021 FPA in eight thematic priority areas: NCD prevention, access to medicines, antimicrobial resistance, digital health, healthy trade, access to health and care for disadvantaged groups, financing for public health and capacity building / organisational development. Each thematic priority includes its own operational objective for 2020 and is broken down into activities including milestones and 20 deliverables. Process, output and outcome indicators are provided for the corresponding specific objectives.
EPHA and its members will continue creating synergies between these areas to strengthen the evidence base, identify best practices and enable policy dialogue between the EU and national level. The beneficiaries are numerous: policymakers, civil society and the public. EPHA will support EU policymakers to better respond to the real health needs of ordinary people, while national stakeholders will be able to make better use of EU policies to play a more active role in EU policy-making.
The implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals will be a thread running through all areas given that the issues EPHA is working on are multisectoral, involving both health and non-health stakeholders. We will work to ensure that reducing health inequalities will remain a priority in the context of the European Pillar of Social Rights and European Semester implementation.
A special focus will be placed on advocating public health friendly policies among new EU officials following the institutional renewal process, as well as newly elected MEPs who joined the European Parliament in 2019. This will be important for shaping the post-2020 policy and funding frameworks that will determine the level of attention paid to public health in general and to the inclusion of disadvantaged groups, including in the digital realm.

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Endo-ERN covers an exceptionally large number of rare conditions across the age span. Whilst some conditions are covered in established international disease registries, there are several that are not. Collectively, the existing detailed disease registries display a number of qualities associated with good registry practice but the involvement of patients, participation by members of Endo-ERN and the research output of these registries is variable with a minimal capacity for interoperability. The central cause that has led to this variation is the lack of a core endocrine registry and the lack of core standards for registries. The overall objective of the European Registries for Rare Endocrine Conditions (EuRRECa) is to ensure that Endo-ERN acheives its mission of driving up standards of clinical care and patient-centred research through maximizing participation in disease registries. The project will do this by developing a new core endocrine registry that collects a core dataset that also includes objective markers of clinical outcome, runs an e-surveillance programme and signposts participants to high-quality, detailed, disease-specific and patient-centred registries that have been evaluated by EuRRECa. The project will achieve the above objective by building on the structure that has been created by Endo-ERN. EuRRECa will receive guidance from expert advisory groups that align with the thematic groups of Endo-ERN. Their guidance will flow through work packages that will review the needs of patients, parents and ethics, evaluate the quality and interoperability of datasets and combine them wth patient centred clinical outcomes. Clear policies that are acceptable to patients, researchers and industry for accessing data for research coupled with widespread dissemination and knowledge-exchange through closely affiliated professional endocrine societies, patient support groups and across all the ERNs will ensure that EuRRECa is sustained over the longer term.
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Main objectives: The three main objectives of the proposal are: prevent avoidable cardiovascular diseases (CVD); strengthen the support for people with CVD; and reinforce cardiovascular research.

How to achieve: The whole population needs to be addressed as well as those at high risk of and those already living with CVD. Therefore, the proposal’s intervention logic is to target policy makers, especially at EU level, to effect changes in policies to achieve small reductions in risk factors across EU’s population of about 500 million, and thus reducing the overall number of people at risk of CVD. The intervention logic, with respect to individuals at high risk for CVD and those already living with it, is to enhance member organisations’ capacity to support patients and fund optimal research. Activities to underpin the intervention logic include a) effective dissemination to EU policy makers of evidence for action (advocacy); b) training and exchange meetings for member organisations (capacity-building and knowledge-sharing); and c) strategic interaction with stakeholders (cooperation/engagement with alliances).

Relevance to the work programme: Two priority areas of the 2017 work programme are: 1) prevention and health determinants; 2) chronic diseases. The proposal’s activities address these head on. CVD make up a substantial part of the chronic disease burden accounting for 19% of all DALYs (on a par with cancer). Tackling CVD is essential for the EU and its member states to achieve international targets on chronic diseases, i.e. a 25% reduction in premature mortality from non-communicable diseases by 2025; and to reduce premature mortality from NCDs by one third by 2030 (Sustainable Development Goals, Goal 3). The proposal’s activities focus strongly on promoting cost-effective promotion and prevention measures in line, in particular, with the EU strategy on diet and nutrition. The proposal is highly relevant to third health programme’s thematic priorities
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