The European Network of AI-Powered Advanced Screening Centres, established by the European Commission as a flagship under the Apply AI Strategy, brings together healthcare providing organisations across Europe to accelerate the rollout of AI in healthcare. It supports real-world clinical validation and local performance assessment of AI tools, initially focusing on prevention, early detection and diagnosis in cancer and cardiovascular disease, with scope to expand over time.
Almost 270 healthcare providing organisations from the EU and neighbouring countries joined the network through the first call for expressions of interest (February-April 2026). A new call opened in May 2026.
What the meeting covered?
The meeting focused on how to move from experimentation to safe, effective deployment at scale, with 2 main sessions:
- AI deployment today - practical approaches to selecting use cases, evaluating solutions, integrating them into clinical workflows, and ensuring post-deployment monitoring.
- AI innovation in practice - examples of clinician-industry collaboration and implementation of AI tools in real-world settings.
Presentations and discussions highlighted real-world use cases in stroke, melanoma, lung cancer and cardiovascular imaging, and addressed key questions such as in-house development versus procurement, pre-deployment evaluation, and how to collaborate effectively with industry.
How the Network will support members?
The meeting also outlined how the Network will function as a community of practice, connecting centres and related EU initiatives (including COMPASS-AI, Cancer Image Europe and the forthcoming cardiovascular flagship) to support knowledge-sharing, validation approaches and capacity-building.
The work of the network is shaped with its members through a bottom-up approach, including surveys and structured discussions.
Next steps
Future Network meetings will act as checkpoints to exchange evidence and implementation lessons. Additional targeted workshops may be organised based on members’ needs. The second Network meeting is foreseen, followed by session on AI in healthcare at the Apply AI Summit on 17 November 2026.
You can download below the agenda as well as the leaflet summarising the key messages and practical takeaways from the first meeting.