EU-EYE IS LAUNCHED

The European Alliance for Vision Research and Ophthalmology (EU-EYE), a non-profit pan-European advocacy organisation with representatives from eight of Europe’s ophthalmology societies, is being officially launched at the XXXIII Congress of the ESCRS in Barcelona.

Their main objectives are to raise political and public awareness of ophthalmology and to increase funding for vision research at EU level. “We decided to pool our efforts in order to increase visibility and performance and to focus on broader issues rather than on specific eye diseases, in order to complement the specific similar activities of some member groups like the EGS, ESCRS and EURETINA,” EU-EYE president Thierry Zeyen MD told EuroTimes in an interview.

The participating societies are the Eye Complications Study Group of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASDec), the European Eye Bank Association (EEBA), the European Glaucoma Society (EGS), the European Society of Retina Specialists (EURETINA), the European Paediatric Ophthalmological Society (EPOS), the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS), the European Society of Cornea and Ocular Surface Disease Specialists (EuCORNEA), and the European Association for Vision and Eye Research (EVER).

The EU-EYE board includes one or two members from each society, appointed by their individual boards. The larger societies, such as the ESCRS and EURETINA, can appoint two members, but will still have only one vote. The EU-EYE executive committee consists of Thierry Zeyen from the EGS, as president; Einar Stefánsson from EURETINA, as vice-president; Jesper Hjortdal from the EEBA, as secretary; Peter Barry from the ESCRS, as treasurer; and Leopold Schmetterer from EVER.

EU-EYE has appointed Agenda Communications in Dublin, Ireland to act as their secretariat, and appointed Burson-Marsteller to be their external advocacy advisor in Brussels.

Prof Zeyen noted that EU-EYE has a number of short- and long-term goals. Their first goal is to try to increase funding and ensure representation of ophthalmology in the EU’s health-related policymaking decisions.

“We would like to ensure representation of ophthalmology in advisory and decision-making EU panels, eg in the European Research Council. We also want to try to simplify funding application so that more researchers can access EU funding,” he said.

Thierry Zeyen:
thierry.zeyen@telenet.be