The HRB Irish Network for Children’s Clinical Trials (In4kids) aims to support researchers in Ireland to develop and deliver a portfolio of high-quality clinical trials that will benefit children’s health. Clinical trials in children are more challenging than those in adults and the pool of eligible children for trials is often small, making collaboration crucial. Children must have at least the same rights as adults regarding access to high quality and evidence-based medications, interventions, and health care services. In4kids will build on existing national and EU investment and will work closely with the CRF infrastructure, CRCI, the HRB TMRN and the national PPI network, to build a sustainable clinical trial network that will support a portfolio of interventional research for children. The network will integrate a strong education and training programme, a young person’s advisory group providing a voice for children and a robust public engagement platform. The network will also work closely with Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) and the new Paediatric Academic Health Science Network that is currently under development. Twenty six percent of the Irish population are children making this one of the largest proportions of young people among the EU Member States. In4Kids is built on a platform of existing collaborations and more than 20 years’ experience in the conduct of RCTs in the paediatric population. The Co-Applicants have built a strong track record in collaborative research over the last decade and in the conduct of large-scale, international, multicentre, randomised controlled trials of interventions. In4kids will consolidate our existing infrastructure and ensure we maintain our place at the international forefront of children’s clinical research. Within the time and resource constraints of the project, the governance, processes, and business case for the network will be developed and implemented to allow In4kids to transition to a completely realised mature network in 5 years. In4kids is the national hub for the European conect4children (c4c) network for research collaboration and clinical trials (https://conect4children.org/) and work will continue to ensure sustainability of this hub. In the first 3 years In4kids will implement three, already funded, proof of viability studies due to begin recruitment in 2021. The network will continue to support the development and implementation of clinical trials, benefiting from our integration with c4c and with input from all key stakeholders (industry, academia, regulators), including children and young people.
The applicant consortium has many existing collaborations with industry partners and will work to enhance these alliances and to strengthen Ireland’s reputation as a good place to do paediatric research. In4kids will continue to collaborate with non-industry partners, the HSE and other stakeholders committed to meet the needs of all paediatric patients (neonates, children, and adolescents). We will build the CTN as a multidisciplinary, multi-specialty network organised around national sites, individual specialty networks and a lean but flexible governance structure which allows and facilitates future expansion and growth.
