Final Report Summary - TRAIN 2009 (Training through Research Application Italian INitative 2009) TRAIN aimed at offering outgoing, incoming and reintegration opportunities to young scientists in the field of translational cancer research. In its initial plan it was designed to finance 51 yearly fellowships to scientists wishing to improve their skills in one of the following areas of translational cancer research: Cutting edge and innovative research on topics related to translational oncology - Applications to translational oncology coming from other fields -Medical Oncology - Surgical Oncology Imaging Radiotherapy - Biotherapy -Palliative Care and Rehabilitation -Pathobiology - Epidemiology and Cancer registries - Oncogenomics and Genetics - Bio-banks -Cancer Immunology - Mutagenesis and Carcinogenesis - Bioinformatics and Structural Biology -Pharmacogenomics - Cancer Information - Molecular and Cell Biology - Micro-invasion and Metastasis - Management, Intellectual Property, Exploitation, Technology Transfer. TRAIN was aimed at promoting the development of international mobility in order to accelerate interaction between basic research and industry in favor of competitiveness and innovation in a field with a strong social and economic impact. The multidisciplinary nature of TRAIN could contribute to accelerating the transition from discovery to application, while also encouraging solidarity towards the new generations who represent the future of our society. Because TRAIN was a mobility program open to both Italian and foreign scientists, it could represent a good starting point to encourage a fruitful exchange of researchers and clinicians among Comprehensive Cancer Centers operating both in Europe and in third countries. The 5 years programme started in February 2011 and, despite the initial delay in setting up a novel scheme, the first call for proposals was launched in May 2011. During the course of the project we had to face several unexpected problems that forced us to revise our strategy and adopt a much more flexible policy on several levels. Nonetheless, TRAIN succeeded in launching 3 calls for 2 years fellowships and we eventually awarded 11 fellows (4 from the first call, 1 from the second call, 67 from the third call).On the whole, the overall accomplishment of the TRAIN project revealed that, despite the critical aspects we had to face, we could support and give opportunity to excellent young researchers to develop projects whose final outcomes were very high quality research. TRAIN website address is: www.trainoncology.eu.List of host organisations; Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Roma, ITALIAUniversità degli Studi di Bari, Bari, ITALIAIFOM Fondazione – Istituto FIRC di Oncologia Molecolare, Milano, ITALIAIOR Istituto Oncologico di Ricerca – EOC Istituto Oncologico della Svizzera Italiana, Bellinzona, SVIZZERAUniversità degli Studi di Trento, Trento, ITALIAPrincess Margaret Hospital , University Health Network, Toronto, CANADA
