On 18 September, Amsterdam hosted the Dutch Implementation Science Symposium 2026, bringing together researchers and professionals from a range of disciplines to discuss current challenges in implementation science. Under the theme “Implementation Science for All: Towards Equitable and Adaptive Practice”, the symposium focused on how evidence-based interventions can be adapted and integrated across diverse settings while ensuring equity and accessibility for all populations.
The programme featured keynote presentations on health inequalities, implementation barriers, and strategies for promoting more inclusive practices, as well as sessions dedicated to co-creation, capacity building, and implementation methodologies.
The Tobacco Control Unit (UCT) of the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) was represented at the symposium by researchers Olena Tigova and Jassia Iqbal Jaffery. A poster was presented on the preliminary findings of a doctoral research project exploring the early adoption of the Primary Cancer Prevention Implementation Toolkit (PCP-IT) across different organisations in Catalonia.
This work is part of the European PIECES project, which aims to improve the implementation of primary cancer prevention programmes through approaches tailored to the needs of different contexts. The PCP-IT is currently being piloted in a range of organisational settings across several European countries, including 12 organisations in Catalonia.
Participation in the symposium provided an opportunity to share experiences from the PIECES project and other initiatives led by the Unit, exchange knowledge with international researchers and practitioners, and gain new insights into adapting implementation approaches to different organisational contexts.
