WECAN – European Patient Advocacy Institute

Our work with WECAN

The Workgroup of European Cancer Patient Advocacy Networks, or WECAN, is a network of leaders from over 20 Pan-European cancer patient advocacy organisations. WECAN aims to strengthen European patient advocacy through educational programs, engaging in stakeholder initiatives, and generating evidence on unmet patient needs.

As a non-profit, the European Patient Advocacy Institute (EPAI) plays a key role in helping WECAN to achieve its mission. Since WECAN is not a legal entity, EPAI provides the WECAN Secretariat and hosts many of WECAN’s programs and initiatives, strictly based on WECAN’s governance model.

Projects

EPAI enables WECAN to achieve its mission to improve the outcomes for all cancer patients. EPAI hosts the following projects for WECAN.

WECAN Secretariat

As the WECAN Secretariat, EPAI maintains the WECAN website and records, and oversees the administration of internal governance, workgroups, and ongoing initiatives

WECAN Academy

The WECAN Academy educates patient advocates to grow their skills, become leaders in advocacy, and enable relevant change. EPAI hosts and plans programs from the WECAN Academy face-to-face training to the Academy online learning platform.

EuroACT

The European Atlas on Clinical Trials on Cancer and Hematology is a research project initiated by WECAN and the European Hematology Community with the aim to understand the clinical trial landscape in over 27 disease areas.

Courses on Evidence-Based Advocacy

In addition to the WECAN Academy, EPAI hosts WECAN’s special training programs on Evidence-Based Advocacy (EBA). These educational programs teach advocates about evidence generation, analyzing and publishing data, and the practical use of this data to drive change.

Virtual Meetings Resource Center

The Virtual Meeting Resource Center was born out of the Covid-19 pandemic when there was a true need to shift to a virtual format. EPAI hosted the project facilitating hardware and software subscriptions and creating resources for the community to become masters of virtual meetings.

WECAN Knowledge Base

The WECAN Knowledge Base is a collection of past presentations from the WECAN Academy that is available on the WECAN website to all patient advocates. EPAI maintains and administers the site.