Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the largest cause of death in the EU and account for around 2 million deaths per year. Overall, CVD are estimated to cause the economy of the EU costs of almost 196 billion Euros a year. Furthermore, they are one of the leading causes of long term sickness, chronic diseases and loss to the labour market. Therefore, CVD are a major health problem in Europe. Despite the overall burden of CVD on European citizens and national health systems, translational cardiovascular research is fragmented and mainly occurs at national levels. However, the present and future challenges in cardiovascular research can only be met by an effective cooperation at transnational level. Therefore, the proposed European Research Area Network on cardiovascular diseases (ERA-CVD) aims to coordinate national and regional programmes for translational research in the area CVD by implementing one Joint Transnational Call (JTC2016) with EU Co-funding followed by further non-co-funded JTC (2017-2019). Although this consortium will be newly established, a collaboration and alignment of national programmes and activities has already been achieved during the preparation of the ERA-Net Co-fund proposal. This process is supported by CardioScape an EU-funded survey of the European cardiovascular research landscape coordinated by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The current ERA-CVD proposal will extend and strengthen the transnational cooperation of the current 23 ministries/institutions/foundations from 18 European, associated and third countries. Furthermore, ERA-CVD plans to cooperate with the ESC and the European Heart Network (EHN). Moreover, the collaboration with European Research Infrastructures, e.g. the ESFRI-initiatives is intended in order to set up an efficient European framework for innovative transnational research on CVD. Also the extension of the consortium and international collaborations are intended.

The STOP project will bring together a range of key health and food sector actors to generate scientifically sound and policy-relevant evidence on the factors that have contributed to the spread of childhood obesity in European Countries and on the effects of alternative policy options available to address the problem. This evidence will complement, systematise and partly reframe the findings of an established body of prior research by leveraging the latest scientific findings. The STOP project will translate the evidence gathered and generated into: a. A comprehensive set of indicators and a measurement framework for the regular monitoring of relevant dimensions of childhood obesity, its determinants and actions to address it in all European Countries; b. Policy toolkits, providing practical guidance and tools for the design and the implementation of effective and sustainable policies and actions by governments and private sector stakeholders; c. A novel, evidence-based, multi-stakeholder framework, to enable and promote a shared understanding of problems and solutions by key actors, relying on a structured process leveraging cognitive mapping and policy simulations validated by empirical data and empowering individual actors to take action within an agreed accountability and monitoring framework. STOP will generate timely, comprehensive and policy-relevant measures of childhood obesity in all European countries; it will generate new trans-disciplinary evidence of the role of key determinants of childhood obesity, emphasising the role of different environments surrounding children, from analyses of detailed multi-dimensional measurements taken on several established EU children cohorts, including epigenetic and biological mediators of obesity; it will assess the impacts of policies and actions to address childhood obesity based on observations in the same children cohorts and policy simulations of the health, social and economic outcomes of policies.