FAQ - EUPATI

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

Stichting EUPATI Foundation, the European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation (EUPATI), is a public-private and multi-stakeholder partnership bringing together patient organisations, academia and pharmaceutical industry. 

EUPATI was developed and implemented as a flagship project of the European Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) in 2012 and is today established as an independent non-profit Foundation.

EUPATI has already trained over 415 patient experts on medicines research and development (R&D), including clinical trials, regulatory affairs and health technology assessment via its Patient Expert Training Programme and provides training and education to thousands of learners via its open-access EUPATI Open Classroom.

Additionally, EUPATI offers and maintains on online Toolbox on medicines R&D, provides patient engagement training to researchers via its Learning Lab, coordinates a network of 24 EUPATI National Platforms in Europe and beyond, and maintains the EUPATIConnect platform to facilitate collaboration between expert patients and researchers.

EUPATI is an independent non-profit Foundation currently comprising 50+ partners, – patient organisations, pharmaceutical organisations, academia and non-profit organisations. EUPATI’s network also includes 24 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. For more information, please see here: https://learning.eupati.eu/

As of May 2025, 415 EUPATI Fellows have graduated from the Patient Expert Training Programme and about 110 trainees are enrolled in the programme, graduating in October 2025.

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.

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 14 languages.

More than 8 million users have accessed the information on the Toolbox since its launch (as of May 2025).

The Toolbox material which is currently available in 14 languages: Danish, German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Romanian, Swedish, Japenese and Greek.

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 is open for patients and patient representatives from anywhere in the world. The learning materials are freely accessible 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, also worldwide.