EATRIS celebrated an important milestone this December in Lisbon, marking the official handover of the Spotlight Programme from Portugal to the Czech Republic. The Portuguese Spotlight final event brought together representatives from all nodes for an all-day meeting that also included a roundtable discussion on the programme’s outcomes, impact, and future evolution.
Launched to empower national voices, strengthen visibility, and showcase scientific excellence, the Spotlight Programme gives each EATRIS Member Country a six-month window to highlight their expertise, mobilise their ecosystem and advance strategic priorities.
Portugal Concludes a Transformative Spotlight Cycle
Portugal’s term in the Spotlight, running from May to December 2025, centred on the theme “Bridging gaps in healthcare: developing solutions across the lifespan.” The programme resulted from a highly collaborative design phase involving all 17 institutions of the EATRIS-PT node and Infarmed as national representative.
Altogether eight multidisciplinary events were organised across the country, addressing key translational topics such as decentralised clinical trials, biobanking, digital health and AI, medical devices, and biomarkers.
The results were remarkable: 932 participants engaged across the programme, including 593 in person and 339 online. The initiative generated concrete outcomes – new national working groups for decentralised trial components, increased biobank requests, collaborative EU project applications, and expanded patient-focused digital literacy efforts.
Above all, the Spotlight Programme catalysed stronger cross-institutional collaboration, cross-border engagement, and dialogue between researchers, hospitals, industry and patient organisations. Key themes emerging from Portugal’s experience included collaboration, empowerment, innovation, visibility and the programme’s transformative potential for national ecosystems.
Czech Republic Enters the Spotlight: A Focus on Precision and Personalised Health
The Czech Republic assumes the next Spotlight cycle with a strong, integrated translational ecosystem coordinated by the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine in Olomouc. Its theme, “Precision and Personalised Health – from Discovery to Patient,” will showcase national excellence in diagnostics, advanced therapies, digital health and data-driven stratification. Spotlight activities will bring together academia, hospitals, industry, regulators, and patient organisations – reflecting the Czech node’s long-standing commitment to cross-sector collaboration.
Upcoming events will include scientific conferences, digital health workshops, ethics and regulation seminars, and public health and patient-engagement activities, with a particular emphasis on cancer prevention, early diagnosis and translational implementation pathways.
Roundtable: Sharing Lessons, Shaping the Future
A central element of the Portuguese Spotlight final event was a roundtable featuring the previous Spotlight nodes Spain, Sweden, and the future countries in Spotlight: the Czech Republic and Italy, moderated by EATRIS-PT National Director Claudia Faria. The discussion addressed expectations, outcomes and challenges experienced by previous Spotlight countries, highlighting benefits such as increased visibility, strengthened national cohesion, and new collaborations across the EATRIS network.
Participants also reflected on long-term impacts, including sustained partnerships, improved internal alignment, and expanded international engagement, such as the Latin America partnerships that Spain developed during their time in Spotlight, that focused on the intersection of climate change and health. Furthermore, Sweden highlighted the interdisciplinary reach through their Spotlight into the ethics and law domains through the theme of AI Opportunities and Challenges in Healthcare.
Future Spotlight countries shared their motivations and expectations, emphasising how the programme can build capacity by consolidating the communities within and beyond the national borders. Recommendations focused on early planning, broad stakeholder involvement and leveraging the Spotlight to unite national communities around shared goals. Furthermore, the countries that have already taken part in the Spotlight Programme recommended synergising with other already ongoing institutional and national initiatives and projects for funding and broadened visibility.
