The Ireland-Northern Ireland-NCI Cancer Consortium
The Ireland-Northern Ireland-NCI Cancer Consortium (also known as the All-Ireland NCI Cancer Consortium) represents health diplomacy at its best. The Consortium emerged as a direct result of the Good Friday Agreement between Ireland and Northern Ireland, in which the U.S. played a substantial role. The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that formed the Consortium in 1999 was witnessed by a number of dignitaries from the three parties to the agreement. Notably, Senator George Mitchell who had helped mediate the Good Friday peace accords was on hand to witness this tangible manifestation of increased interaction between the jurisdictions.
In addition to facilitating interactions among the cancer research communities represented by the Consortium, the Consortium has developed a number of joint partnerships to expand cancer research and care across the island of Ireland. The scope of the Consortium's activities can be gauged by the breadth of its scientific programs, which include scholar exchange, clinical trials, epidemiology/cancer registries, nursing, information technology/telecommunications, health economics/cancer policy analysis, and cancer prevention.
Scholar exchanges thus far have included two Irish scholars and one American given 3-year fellowships in epidemiology that include one year working with NCI's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End-Results (SEER) program at the NCI in Bethesda and eighteen Irish nurses who have trained in oncology nursing and clinical trials for three months within the NIH Clinical Research Center. Over 130 all-Ireland public health and medical professionals have also completed NCI's Summer Curriculum in Cancer Prevention program over the past several years. The collaboration between the cancer registries covering Ireland and Northern Ireland under the auspices of the Consortium has resulted in the first comparison of cancer incidence rates to ever occur between the North and South. Fellowships are also open to American post-docs.
The NCI has also been involved in the development of the NCI/Health Research Board Health Economics Fellowships in Cancer, which aims to enhance the infrastructure for health economics research on the island of Ireland by increasing the number of health economics Ph.D. candidates in Ireland. More information about the Consortium’s Health Economics Initiative can be found at http://www.allirelandnci.org/programs/health_economics.shtml.
Visit http://www.allirelandnci.org for more information about the Ireland-Northern Ireland-NCI Cancer Consortium and its activities, or contact Ms. Isabel Otero, Consortium Program Director at isotero@mail.nih.gov
