Final report of OMA submitted to the European Commission
The OMA consortium submitted its final report to the European Commission at the end of March. This submission marked the official end of a hugely successful project that has seen 38 universities, research centres, ion-beam treatment facilities, and leading industry partners, joining forces to train 15 early stage researchers in the optimization of medical accelerators.
The fellows have undertaken a 3 year-long formation plan through beyond state-of-the-art research, and an intensive programme of training events. The cross-sector interdisciplinary environment created by OMA, facilitating secondments and collaborations, has boosted the career and employability of the researchers.
Advances in the design and optimization of facilities for cancer treatment, beam imaging and treatment monitoring, as well as numerical simulations for the development of advanced treatment schemes, have resulted in 23 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 20 conference proceedings.
Tireless outreach and dissemination activities have expanded the OMA network with a total of 13 new adjunct partners, and have helped to raise awareness among the general public in general, and school children in particular, of the impact of particle accelerator research on cancer diagnosis and treatment.
The over 70 pages-long final report is a comprehensive summary of all the activities and achievements of OMA, including a detailed account of the research carried out by each of the fellows, the list of publications, milestones and deliverables, a description of all the training and management activities organised, dissemination and outreach, as well as the overall impact of OMA on science and society.
Such a successful project cannot be brought abruptly to an end. That is why we have decided to continue the networking activities for as long as we can. We will continue to publish the OMA Express newsletter for at least another year (please send us your stories!) and we are planning to organise two more topical workshops as soon as the travel restrictions imposed by the current situation are lifted.
Stay tuned!