Meet Karolin Kroese, ECMC Programme Lead

Last month Karolin Kroese joined the ECMC as our new ECMC Programme Office Lead. Karolin will be managing the Programme Office, liaising with funders and sponsoring key projects. We sat down with Karolin to find out more about her and her vision for the ECMC network. 

 

Can you tell us about your background and what attracted you to the role? 

I completed my PhD in Biochemistry/Cell Biology at the University of Leicester before leaving the lab to work more closely with patients and the public. First, I ran a community outreach project funded by the Edith Murphy Foundation at Leicester with the aim to communicate research in a more accessible way and raise health awareness specifically around the needs of local, underserved communities. I then moved to Cancer Research UK where I managed the International Alliance for Cancer Early Detection (ACED), a 5-year, £55m, 6-partner UK/US research partnership. Here I was overseeing both strategic and operational delivery to bring alliance partners together in a truly collaborative effort to accelerate early detection for patient benefit.

 

The ECMC network provides the same mechanism – at an increased scale – to accelerate research towards patient benefit, bringing together the brightest minds across the UK. As I’ve always worked closely with patients, putting patient benefit in everything I do, the ECMC network has the potential to really drive this. I believe in ‘the whole being greater than the sum of its individual parts’ and find the network’s potential and opportunities, and the outstanding expertise we can harness at our sites, through the various funders, as well as the programme office, truly inspiring.

 

I think one of our patient representatives has captured the essence of the network and what we should strive for well: “The UK is such a tiny island but the research coming out of it is amazing! The US have said ‘we can’t get funding like this over here’ – so don’t waste it – imagine what we can do when we work together.”

 

What is your role in the ECMC Programme Office?  

I am very fortunate to have an extremely knowledgeable and experienced team driving and delivering the various workstreams of the network (People, Science, & Process). I therefore see my main focus on maintaining high-level oversight and shaping and delivering our vision for the network as a whole. In collaboration with the network lead, our centres and their teams, our funders, and industry partners, I’ll be leading the team to identify where the network’s next big opportunities are to accelerate patient impact, ensuring that everything we do delivers against our overarching vision and objectives through collaborative approaches. External visibility is a key focus as part of this, and I will be exploring how we can further increase this.   

 

What is your vision for the PO and the network?

To keep building on our current activities and successes to continue to enable impact for patients. There is so much potential in the network to utilise the outstanding expertise and pool this together in a truly collaborative manner to attract industry, optimise study set up times, and bring the UK back to the forefront of early phase trial delivery. I would also like to ensure we utilise the network’s academic mindset and innovative spirit to enable the delivery of our vision, as well as looking to advance our efforts in bridging the gap between paediatric and adult clinical research communities to ultimately enable a truly pan-age network.  

 

What is your proudest achievement to date? 

I don’t think there is one single achievement I am most proud of. I think it’s more that when things get a little challenging, I don’t give up. I have always found motivation and resilience somewhere, focused on the positives and the learnings, and carried on, eyes on the prize. This mindset is what I am most proud of. And something I hope I can instil into everyone I work with, as well. 

 

What is the most important piece of advice you’ve been given? 

I think the best thing I have realised was that we are all in the same boat to a certain extent and all just carry on doing what we are doing to our best abilities. And that it’s so much easier when we all pull together as a team. So maybe not advice per se, but a realisation. 

 

Who or what inspires you? 

I’m surrounded by kind and ambitious people – every single person I interact with inspires and motives me in a way. If it’s one of our patient reps giving up their time to help others, a colleague changing our ways of working to make the organisation more efficient, or my friends pushing themselves to achieve new PB’s in the gym, trying to be better than the day before.