The challenge is to bring together a variety of skills in different fields, to create forums for exchanges and closer ties between researchers and stakeholders, to take stock of research strengths in the end-of-life field, to draw up a scientific research strategy, to propose tools for structuring and coordinating research, and to develop European and international cooperation. [...] with the aim of producing, at the highest level, the knowledge and methods that will enable them to be articulated effectively with practice.

Isabelle RICHARD
Health Advisor, Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation

We'd like to emphasize that it's a real challenge to launch this platform. A scientific challenge to improve knowledge on this subject, at the interface between many disciplines, a challenge to get different communities to work together, a challenge concerning scientific excellence, a challenge vis-à-vis an opening to Europe and internationally, and a challenge to succeed in informing public decision-making. What is expected? In two or three years' time, the excellent research teams in biology, geography, sociology, medicine, etc. should have succeeded in federating, defining a common scientific strategy to prioritize a few research questions and the means to answer them, building a perennial structuring of research in this end-of-life field and nurturing international contacts.

Anne PAOLETTI
Director, Health Biology Sector
Directorate General for Research and Innovation

Université Bourgogne Franche-Comte (UBFC) is proud to be leading the National Platform for End-of-Life Research. UBFC's shared aim is to develop a visible and attractive higher education and research cluster. One of the three priorities of the emblematic ISITE-BFC project led by UBFC is health. It was therefore a logical step for UBFC to host the National Platform for End-of-Life Research. Beyond this portage, it is indeed the community that you represent during these days that is an actor of this platform.

Nicolas CHAILLET
President, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté

The inauguration of this platform is an important moment in the history of our thinking and practices for people at the end of life. In recent years, research practices have greatly evolved [...] and we are faced with new necessities. In France, there are some very talented people - doctors, carers, researchers in social sciences and humanities - but they have little opportunity to pool their results and their questions. Skills are often mobilized on an ad hoc basis. We need to learn from each other, and develop skills that could be mutually beneficial. We need to be displaced, decentered by divergent or related disciplines if science is to advance. With regard to the political dimension of the question, we have to make a real effort.

Patrick BAUDRY
Co-President of the Plateforme nationale pour la recherche sur la fin de vie

What is end-of-life research? It can concern many interfaced fields. If we look at it from a medical point of view, there is of course a need to develop research on medication to better control discomfort, research to help improve the journeys of patients with serious illnesses... but we can question other fields. We need to move beyond the somewhat narrow field of palliative medicine: we need to understand mankind's relationship to suffering, we need to understand society's difficulties in dealing with the end of life. What is it that makes our society struggle with this issue? How can we tackle this issue by bringing together different viewpoints and skills on end-of-life issues?

Régis AUBRY
Co-President of the Plateforme nationale pour la recherche sur la fin de vie