What projects and network activities does ECDC coordinate and fund? What are their main components and outputs?

International collaboration is essential for maintenance of high quality diagnostics across the EU and catalysing research to counteract this public health threat . ECDC has a role in building and developing  microbiology laboratory networks.

Collaborations of laboratory network  in the European Union are well established through the Commission-funded designated surveillance networks (DSNs) and public health relevant research initiatives. Pan-European learned societies in microbiology also support collaborations. 

ECDC builds on the work of these European laboratory activities and have initiated several new projects. Their scope ranges from purely strategic (i.e. needs analysis studies and identification of the role of ECDC for a specific microbiology issue topic) to operational (i.e. development and implementation of external quality assessment schemes). Read more about current projects