The Stockholm declaration signals a cultural change in Europe's approach to cancer research. An interview with Ulrik Ringborg

* Tel.: þ44 1763 838 8 E-mail address: han 1574-7891/$ – see fron doi:10.1016/j.molonc.2 Prof. Ulrik Ringborg is Director of Cancer Center Karolinska, President of the Organisation of European Cancer Institutes (OECI), and one of the original signatories of the Stockholm Declaration. For cancer research, as in other areas of scientific endeavour, Europe’s strong basic science tradition is one of its great strengths. Networks of researchers, be they in radiobiology, immunology, or genetics, connect and work together throughout the continent and produce excellent science. But to really move forward in the fight against cancerrelated morbidity and mortality, we need a far greater level of cooperation – across the continent and across disciplines. Subject-specific groups can only do one type of research, and are generally limited to the confines of their field. If radiobiologists are only interested in radiobiologists, and immunologists in immunologists, who is interested in the patient? The central premise of the Stockholm Declaration is that those with responsibility for the total structure of cancer research – the people running the Europe’s large comprehensive cancer centres – are the ones that should have the patient as the focus of their work. So, linking centres within a formal collaboration, as the Declaration suggests, should also put the patient’s perspective at the centre of broad cancer research efforts, while enabling us, as a community, to reach the necessary critical research mass to make innovative advances in treatments and care. Linking comprehensive cancer centres would create a formidable platform, but to retain its innovative capability it must be dynamic, not rigid, and it must be evaluated right from the start. It can start small, as the Declaration suggests,