About eYPAGnet

The European Young Persons Advisory Group Network (eYPAGnet) is a consortium of Young People’s Advisory Groups (YPAGs) across Europe. It was founded by the following groups:  GenerationR (Liverpool, England). Kids Barcelona, Kids France, and ScotCRN (Scotland).

The network was established to support the development of new YPAGs within Europe. It aims to provide the necessary infrastructure to support meaningful and valued involvement of children and young people in clinical trial design and health research. 

Barcelona YPAG

eYPAGnet provides a single, centralised point of contact for:

  • Sponsors (both industry or academics) who want advice from children and young people
  • A collaboration of YPAGs with the relevant working parties of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) including the European Network of Paediatric Research networks (EnprEMA) and the Paediatric Committee (PDCO), 
  • European Initiatives including Conect4Children and Paediatric Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (PEDCRIN

eYPAGnet also provides support in the training of CYP and coordinators of YPAG’s to ensure a high standard of understanding of patient and public involvement, clinical trial design, ethics and research methodology.

The European Young Person’s Advisory Group Network (eYPAGnet) provides a platform for children and young people to have a voice across Europe, share their opinions, and apply their experience to a variety of issues in clinical trials, such as relevant endpoints, protocol design, formulations, age-appropriate information, and patient tools.

The YPAGs include young people aged between 8-19 years (although some groups have older young adults up to the age of 21) who are patients, regular attenders at hospital, and/or have an interest in science, healthcare, and children’s rights. YPAGs are predominantly facilitated by a professional involved in a clinical research facility, children’s hospital, or academic institution.

eYPAGnet provides a centralised point of contact and creates a platform in which investigators can access the opinions of children and young people in a manner that is regulated with standard contracts, confidentiality agreements, agreed payments for services, and services that are ethically sound.

The goals of eYPAGnet are:

A YPAG doing a learning activity
  • To improve the capacity of collaboration between children, young people, and stakeholders who participate in the research process and development of innovative drugs. 
  • To promote the planning and development of clinical research initiatives for children at a European level. 
  • To unify the curriculum of training programs for children, young people, and facilitators of YPAGs. 
  • To promote and support the creation of new groups. 
  • To empower children and young people to have a voice in Europe that is valued.