Nearly 47 million people worldwide are currently estimated to be living with dementia, and this number is expected to almost double every 20 years, yet treatments that prevent or stop the progression of neurodegeneration are still lacking. Tackling this grand challenge requires enhanced coordination at national level to accelerate discovery. Such synergies have been created among 30 countries in the EU Joint Programming Initiative on Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND). JPND has a long standing experience in collaborative actions; since 2011, a cumulated funding of more than 200 M € has been dedicated to competitive transnational calls and JPND is now a reference for European and global knowledge as an innovative platform in the area of neurodegenerative diseases. Building on earlier successes of the JPND Research Strategy in scaling-up and establishing synergies with Horizon 2020, there is a need to continue previous efforts to consolidate these JPND successes in defragmentation, coordination and alignment among the countries, and by developing new links with the European Commission. In 2019, JPcofuND 2 launched an ambitious call for proposals on Personalised Medicine, where the benefits for patients affected with neurodegenerative diseases will be explored through personalised diagnosis, personalised prevention and personalised care. Participating countries have earmarked 24,7 M€ of national funds for this call. Moreover, to expand the impact of the project, JPND will continue to implement other actions without EU co-funding such as aligning national research strategies, making databases more accessible and interoperable, developing enabling capacities such as supportive infrastructure and platforms, capacity building, education and training. These actions are required in parallel to achieve the highest impact for the patients, their carers and for society as a whole and to address this grand challenge in the coming years.
