ECRIN: Pan‑European Infrastructure Partner for Multinational Clinical Trials in Horizon Europe Health 2026–2027

ECRIN is a European Research Infrastructure (ERIC, ESFRI Landmark) supporting the design, set-up and conduct of high-quality multinational clinical studies. Through its national networks of Clinical Trial Units (CTUs), ECRIN provides coordinated services for protocol development, regulatory and ethics submissions, contracts, monitoring, pharmacovigilance, data management and quality management across Europe.

ECRIN seeks to join consortia planning multi-country interventional or complex clinical research, including large pan-European trials, deep-phenotyping cohorts, pragmatic/implementation trials, or innovative study designs.

ECRIN contributes to:

• Study methodology, trial design and trial governance

• Funding application support, cost evaluation, protocol per review

• Operational feasibility assessments and trial delivery

• Regulatory/ethics strategy & national submissions

• Harmonised data management, FAIR/metadata practices

In addition to trial operations, ECRIN also participates/coordinates infrastructure development projects that strengthen the foundations of clinical research in Europe. Rather than producing clinical trial results, these projects focus on creating or improving the structures that support clinical research, such as data platforms, trial networks, regulatory support systems, or digital tools.

Through this work, ECRIN contributes to:

• Capacity building and institutional strengthening: supporting countries, institutions and research networks to conduct high-quality multinational clinical trials through shared services, methodological support and training programmes.

• Strengthening core infrastructure and capabilities: Building and enhancing tools, platforms, methodologies and services that support the planning, management and conduct of clinical trials, e.g. data platforms for clinical research metadata or tools for adaptive clinical trial design.

• Developing tools for data access, sharing and reuse: Building or expanding data resources, repositories, catalogues or standards to improve access to clinical data and related research materials.

• Targeted support to specific research communities: Developing tailored resources for communities such as paediatric research, rare diseases or novel trial designs, to help investigators find relevant information, coordinate studies, and improve trial design and conduct.

• Training, knowledge dissemination and uptake: Delivering training programmes, educational materials, and communication to ensure research communities can adopt new tools, standards and methods.

• Policy, standards and long-term sustainability: Contributing methodological recommendations, policy guidance and standards that improve quality, reproducibility and harmonisation of clinical research across Europe, while helping create infrastructures that deliver services beyond the lifetime of individual projects.

Expertise - what we offer

• Pan‑European infrastructure for multinational interventional and complex clinical studies

• End‑to‑end clinical trial support: feasibility, protocol review, regulatory strategy, ethics, national submissions, contracts, monitoring, pharmacovigilance, data management, quality and risk‑based monitoring

• Proven experience as partner in FP7 / H2020 / Horizon Europe projects across many disease areas (infectious disease, neurology, cardiology, rare diseases, oncology, etc.).

• Network of national partners (CTUs) enabling recruitment, on‑site activities and harmonised procedures in many European countries.

• Expertise in trial methodology, governance models, data standardisation, FAIR data, and connection with other Research Infrastructures (e.g. BBMRI, EATRIS, ELIXIR, EURO-BIOIMGING, etc) and data sharing initiatives (e.g. EOSC, EHDS)

• Leadership/participation in clinical research infrastructure development projects (capacity building, digital tools, sustainable services)

What ECRIN is looking for

• Coordinators and consortia planning large, multi‑country clinical trials or complex clinical studies under the 2026 Health calls (especially DISEASE, some STAYHLTH and TOOL/IND topics with major clinical components)

• Partners interested in designing methodologically robust, GCP‑compliant pragmatic or implementation trials (e.g. NCD prevention, long‑term conditions, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases).

• Collaborations on sustainable clinical research infrastructures, capacity building, and harmonised data/quality frameworks across Member States.