Eunethta: further steps towards European cooperation on health technology assessment.

The European network for Health Technology Assessment (EUnetHTA) was established to increase cooperation in European health technology assessment (HTA) by developing a common set of tools, methods, documents, and HTA information. The collaboration is well recognized within the European HTA community and at an international level. Timely and efficient usage of European HTA resources is possible as demonstrated by EUnetHTA partners and associates successfully working together. Factors that support collaboration include knowledge of each other’s work plans, use of common templates and methodology, and using a common scientific and working “language.” HTA is a resource intensive activity with a heavy burden of evidence gathering. The sharing of data and findings in a standardized manner has the potential to reduce those resource requirements. Although tools were developed within the EUnetHTA Joint Action, their use is not restricted to the European setting. This Special Issue describes the EUnetHTA Joint Action (JA) project (2010–2012) as a further step towards sustainable European cooperation on HTA which can add value at the European, national and regional levels. Several networks have aimed to increase international collaboration in HTA, including the International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment (INAHTA), Health Technology Assessment international (HTAi) and HTAsiaLink. Since the mid-1990s, the European Union (EU) Commission has supported several initiatives to increase cooperation and share information between HTA agencies within the European community. The European network of HTA (EUnetHTA) stemmed from previous work in this area: EUR-ASSESS (1994–97), HTA Europe (1997–98), and ECHTA/ECAHI (2000–02). The first 3-year EUnetHTA project (2006–08) sought to “provide reliable, timely, transparent, and transferable information on the shortand long-term effects of health technologies as input to decision making in Member States of the EU” through the development of a set of practical tools for HTA (1). The outputs included the HTA Core Model (a framework for structuring an HTA report into standardized assessment elements), information for decision makers about emerging technologies, and collaboration on access with evidence generation. Recommendations were made at the end of the project, including the need to continue developing and evaluating these HTA tools in real-life settings (1). Three additional years of EU funding was granted for a EUnetHTA joint action (2010–12). This JA1 project recruited thirty-eight government-appointed organizations from twentysix EU member states, Norway, and Croatia. The work was structured into eight work streams. The Executive Committee provided strategic leadership of the project, all member agencies met yearly in the Plenary Assembly, and a Stakeholder Forum facilitated information exchange. The project’s overarching aim was to “establish an effective and sustainable HTA collaboration in Europe that brought added value at the regional, national and European level”, with three specific objectives: