STAND4Kids Information

STAND4Kids is the Portuguese Research National Network created as a National Hub for pediatric clinical trials for the Conect4Children (c4) project (www.conect4children.org) in Portugal. @c4c is a large collaborative pan-European network aiming to optimise the delivery of clinical trials in children. STAND4Kids aims to establish a sustainable, lean, fit-for-purpose, national pediatric trial network that facilitates high-quality, child/family- and clinically-relevant, operationally efficient pediatric clinical trials in Portugal. Our network includes 10 pediatric hospital sites across the country, most within academic clinical centres with dedicated research units, experience, expertise and capacity in conducting pediatric research. STAND4KIDS is hosted by Association for Research and Development of the Faculty of Medicine (AIDFM), a non-profit and public benefit association that promotes biomedical research at the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidade de Lisboa and it has the Sociedade Portuguesa de Pediatria (SPP), and Faculdade de Medicina of the Universidade de Lisboa (FMUL) as Third Parties. Our key areas of activity: • to establish a single national contact point for pediatric clinical trials, including c4c proof-of-viability studies; • to oversee and support feasibility requests at national and site level for pediatric clinical trials and clinical research studies; • to oversee and support site setup and readiness, study execution, performance and quality for c4c and other pediatric studies conducted in the network; • to disseminate and support the implementation of standards and training activities for the development and qualification and capacity building of national sites; • to engage, foster and provide a forum for stakeholders, including patient organizations and Young Person’s Advisory Groups (YPAG); • to promote and disseminate activity and outputs of clinical trials.