FAQ - EUPATI

EUPATI stands for the European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation.

The European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation is a multi-stakeholder initiative, originally established as an IMI project (2012-2017), then hosted by the European Patients’ Forum (EPF) (2017-2020) and since 2020 established as an independent non-profit Foundation. It is a successful programme that provides education and training to increase the capacity and capability of patients to understand and contribute to medicines research and development (R&D), and to improve the availability of medical information for the health interested public.

EUPATI is an independent non-profit Foundation currently comprising 36 partners, – patient organisations, pharmaceutical organisations, academia and non-profit organisations. EUPATI’s network also includes 23 National Platforms as well as Regulators and HTA bodies. For more information, please see here.

The EUPATI Patient Expert Training Programme is a unique opportunity for patients and patient representatives to receive expert-level training in medicines research and development, specifically tailored for them. The training is a mixture of e-learning coursework and face-to-face training and leads to a certificate as EUPATI Fellow. To date, 4 cohorts of trainees, about 210 persons, have graduated from the programme. For more information, please see here: https://learning.eupati.eu/

As of April 2022, 207 EUPATI Fellows have graduated from the Patient Expert Training Programme and about 60 trainees are enrolled in the programme, graduating in October 2022.

The EUPATI Toolbox was launched in January 2016. It contains a library of information about medicines research and development. This information is not medicine- or disease-specific.

More than 5.5 million users have accessed the information on the Toolbox since its launch. It provides the “A-Z of medicines research and development” from lab bench to approval, drug safety and other topics. Users can access the Toolbox information currently in 13 languages.

The Toolbox material which is currently available in 13 languages: Danish, German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Romanian, Swedish and Japanese.

The EUPATI National Platforms (ENPs) mirror the EUPATI public-private partnership model at the national/country level. ENP Membership is open to all, but its make-up can vary from country to country. In some countries, ENPs are set up as an informal group run by volunteers, other countries have established legal entities with formal statutes and paid staff in place.

ENPs’ work includes establishing national patient education programmes, establishing charters for patient involvement, members speaking internationally at conferences and promoting education by establishing workshops on patient engagement, mini-courses or webinars. National platforms are not disease specific and as a result they bring together individuals across all areas of patient involvement.

The European Patients’ Forum (“EPF”) is an umbrella organisation of pan-European patient organisations active in the field of European public health and health advocacy. EPF currently represents 74 patients’ organisations, including both chronic disease specific patients’ organisations operating at the EU level and also national coalitions of patients’ organisations.

EUPATI focuses on training and patient education, and is not involved in policy work. EPF is a founding member of EUPATI, hosted EUPATI during the so-called bridging phase 2017-2020 and continues to play a key role in EUPATI’s governance and activities.

Patient Focused Medicines Development (PFMD) aims to transform the way in which we understand, engage, and partner with patients globally in the design and development of research and medicines by focusing on unmet patient needs. PFMD (Patient Focused Medicine Development) & EUPATI have a common objective: supporting all stakeholders in making patient engagement the new normal. PFMD and EUPATI have joined efforts in providing training and increasing awareness about patient engagement to all stakeholders. This collaboration enables breaking down existing silos, identifying and disseminating best practices across the board, avoiding redundancy and fragmentation, and building coherent and complementary capacity to deliver patient engagement. The goal is to collaborate in developing a capacity building portfolio available in different formats: online (self-paced, provided by PFMD) and in-person (classroom training, provided by EUPATI), long and short versions to meet the needs of the various stakeholder groups and audiences. Please read more here: https://eupati.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/eupati-pfmd-collaboration-2-pager-finalversion.pdf

Current:

Patient Expert Training Programme, accessible online via the EUPATI Open Classroom
Toolbox
EUPATI National Platforms
Training provided by EUPATI National Platforms
EUPATI Fundamentals (training about patient engagement for professionals)
EUPATI Essentials (follow-up to EUPATI Fundamentals)
EUPATI In-House Training (tailored training about patient engagement for academia and industry)
Continued training for EUPATI Alumni
EUPATIConnect – Matchmaking & Mentoring of EUPATI Fellows with EUPATI Partners

The EUPATI Patient Expert Training Programme has been open for patients and patient representatives from all over Europe since its launch. They will remain the main target audience of the training in the future, but the transformation of the programme onto online on-demand training units in 2020 allows also representatives of other stakeholder groups to access the learning materials and take online training modules via the EUPATI Open Classroom: https://learning.eupati.eu/.

The EUPATI Fundamentals, EUPATI Essentials and tailored In-House Training on patient engagement are addressed to professionals in academia and pharmaceutical industry.