Accelerating research in human and social sciences in oncology

WeShare official launch

Paris, 7 December 2021 - A multidisciplinary consortium led by Unicancer, announces the creation of WeShare, a new nationwide digital infrastructure dedicated to accelerating research in human and social sciences in oncology. The objective of the WeShare platform, the scientific coordinator of which is Gustave Roussy, is to identify new levers for taking action around the impacts of cancer and its treatments on patients’ quality of life.

Taking the change in the life expectancy of patients treated and followed-up for cancer into account

The progress made over the past decades on the diagnosis, treatment and management of patients treated for cancer has improved both their life expectancy and their quality of life. Prolonging the life expectancy of patients involves setting new priorities and developing new areas of research on the reduction of medical and psychosocial risks related to cancer and to treatments. The objective is to facilitate the integration of research in human and social sciences into oncology conventional clinical research.

WeShare: a patient-centred, integrated, dynamic, shared, nationwide research infrastructure at the service of all oncology researchers.

WeShare is an innovative platform set to offer technology tools which can be used to study all research subjects in the field of human and social sciences. The WeShare platform will also be used as an incubator for innovative projects.

• A web platform with a number of features including collection and/or integration of clinical and therapeutic data, collection of data entered by patients, family members-carers or healthy volunteers (electronic Patient-Reported Outcome (ePRO)), online consent to participate in research with electronic signature, randomisation, videoconference, audio capture and transcription, access to multimedia documents and recording of biometric data.
• Connectors to structured data sources of establishments making information collection easy, and in the long-term to the national health data system (Système National des Données de Santé - SNDS).
• A community coordination solution, for improving communication with patients, healthy volunteers, family members-carers, healthcare professionals and researchers, to better inform about ongoing and future studies, and thus strengthen their commitment and improve the efficiency of research.
• A tool for collecting, managing and providing data collected during various studies, in accordance with security standards and regulations.

Selected during the 2020 Equipex request for proposals by the French National Agency for Research (Agence Nationale de la Recherche - ANR) as part of the Investments for the Future programme, WeShare (ANR-21-ESRE-0017) received funding of €11M.

“WeShare is a unique effort, world pioneer, and patient-centred to provide research with innovative data production and collection tools and to boost research in human and social sciences in oncology. WeShare aims to bring together patients and researchers to enable transformative research, the objective of which is to reduce the medical and social burden of cancer” 

Dr Ines Vaz Luis, oncologist at Gustave Roussy and scientific coordinator of WeShare

WeShare: a technical and scientific skills mix

Unicancer, under the scientific coordination of Dr Ines Vaz Luis, has set up a multidisciplinary consortium of:

• 3 cancer centres: Gustave Roussy (Villejuif), Centre François Baclesse (Caen) and Centre Léon Bérard (Lyon)
• École Polytechnique
• the association Seintinelles
• the national Quality of Life and Cancer platform

A multidisciplinary approach has been chosen, with:

• high profile cancer researcher clinicians,
• experts in human and social sciences (especially in psychology, sociology of science and public health, and health economy),
• citizens: patients, healthy volunteers, family members-carers, . patients associations,
• and of course competent staff working on the development and maintenance of the platform

“With WeShare, there is a whole new change of approach. It will no longer be a question of focussing research on the therapeutic management aspect of patients, but integrating all factors having an influence on their life expectancy and quality of life, during and after cancer. WeShare will be used to achieve this revolution, carrying considerable progress and hope for patients”

Prof. Jean-Yves Blay, President of Unicancer