The IMI Joint Undertaking is a public-private partnership between the EU and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry Associations (EFPIA). The two partners are equally represented on the board of directors, the main decision-making body of the joint venture. The board of directors is advised by committees in which the scientific community, the EU governments and the countries associated with the Horizon 2020 initiative are represented. In addition, it receives input from other groups created to coordinate the company's tasks common in specific fields.
The main objectives of the Joint Undertaking and its priority areas of research are determined in the Regulation establishing the Joint Undertaking and in the Strategic Research Programme. IMI relies on them to launch calls for proposals on specific research topics. The evaluation of the proposals is in the hands of external experts.
Beneficiaries
-Patients, who can influence the investigation of their ailments. In the long term, both they and society as a whole will benefit from faster access to better and safer medicines,
-university researchers and SMEs, which obtain funds for research,
-pharmaceutical companies, who acquire knowledge and tools to improve their research and development activities,
- and to all the participants in the projects, who benefit from the technical knowledge of the other partners and from the possibility of transforming scientific discoveries into useful tools, thus promoting the development of medicines.
