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and institutes, where there is already the necessary • Health Research Board (HRB) / Science
critical mass of resources and expertise. Increased Foundation Ireland (SFI), Ireland
collaboration between national centers of exce-
llence should also provide the opportunity to acce- • Ministero della Salute (MDS, Italy)
lerate progress in understanding the basic • Centre of Excellence for Brain Research
mechanisms of disease, and the identification of
new therapeutic approaches. (MESRS), Slovakia
• CIBERNED-Fundación CIEN, Spain
To this end, on June 10, 2010, the Canadian Institutes • Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR),
of Health Research (CIHR), the German Centre for
Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE, Germany) and France
the Medical Research Council (MRC, UK) launched
a funding initiative to establish a collaborative ap- The overall objective of the COEN initiative is to cre-
proach to research in neurodegenerative diseases, ate a collaborative research activity in the field of
called "Centers of Excellence in Neurodegeneration neurodegeneration beyond national borders, focu-
(COEN)". These founding members were later joined sing on critical mass and excellence. COEN is alig-
by other European institutions and thus, in Decem- ned with the JPND, although it functions as an
ber 2011 the COEN membership application by CI- independent entity. The overlapping of the COEN
BERNED-CIEN Foundation was approved, group members with those of the JPND will ensure
recognizing the scientific excellence in both basic that their complementary objectives progress in
and clinical science of the institution which became close cooperation with each other. This is accom-
part of the COEN Oversight Group. In 2012, CIEN plished through a two-step process, involving expert
Foundation and CIBERNED joined this Committee to workshops for the analysis of needs, followed by a
participate actively in the design of the future COEN call for proposals for collaborative teams between
scientific strategy. Both institutions are represented PIs within the participating national Centers of Exce-
by Dr. Miguel Medina, member of the CIEN Founda- llence.
tion Scientific Advisory Board and CIBERNED Deputy
Scientific Director. During 2015 the French Agence Phase I of the initiative was launched by the end of
Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) has also been 2010 and was intended to establish common re-
acknowledged as a new COEN member. sources and methodological approaches to support
future studies. Some of the key issues addressed
Current COEN members are: have been: the refinement and validation of cellular
and animal disease models; the development of
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) new measures to define patient subgroups for clini-
• Deutsche Zentrum für Neurodegenerative cal trials; the identification of new biomarkers to sup-
port translational research; the development and
Erkrankungen (DZNE, Germany) harmonization of cognitive test batteries for diagno-
• Medical Research Council (MRC, United sis and follow-up of disease progression; and the es-
tablishment of common computer platforms to
Kingdom) improve data analysis and exchange.
• Flanders Institute of Biotechnology (VIB
Phase II of the initiative was initiated in 2013 with the
Flanders, Belgium) launch of the call for projects called "Pathfinder",
completed with successive calls in 2016 and 2017.
These three calls for "Pathfinder" research projects
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