Back in November 2016, the first meeting for the constitution of RECLIP was held at La Paz Research Institute in Madrid (IdiPAZ). By that time, the network consisted of 12 reference hospitals, the Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research (FISABIO) and 2 research networks RITIP (Translational Research Network in Pediatric Infectious Diseases) and SAMID (Maternal and Child Health Development Research Network). RECLIP was launched under coordination of Prof. Dr. Federico Martinón-Torres, Head of the Pediatrics Service of the Hospital of Santiago de Compostela. Since then, the collaborative character of our network has been made possible with the inclusion of new members, reaching 25 sites across our country.

Since our inception, our goal has been to become a national representative for any international or national initiative dealing with paediatric clinical trials. The close collaboration with our partners and members, and the continuous work in the standardization of procedures, with the joint work of c4c partners has allowed our members to strengthen communication and commitment towards our common goal of delivering better medicines for children and young people.

The alliances established between the strong and experienced RECLIP partners reduce risk and uncertainty inherent to paediatric clinical trials by enabling collaborators to engage the best investigators and benefit from the shared expertise and best practices of all partners. Furthermore, the collective expertise of the organizations involved allows us to spend less time on administrative tasks related to start-up processes and finding sites, and more time recruiting and managing patients within the trial. RECLIP has been involved in collaborative initiatives to improve the recruitment rate of sites by developing peer to peer (P2P) strategies. We are also concerned with the engagement of patients in the development of clinical trials so that the expertise of our sites and members will be shared across of the network. Our future goal is to create a young patient advisory group at a national level.

RECLIP has worked actively on several proposals to take part in different international trials, including c4c Proof-of-Viability Trials, funded by both industry and non-industry sponsors within the context of c4c. Thanks to the sound expertise, background knowledge and support of our national hub team, and with the invaluable support from the c4c network, our sites are being selected for different academic and industry trials.

Within RECLIP we meet and communicate on a regular basis with our partners, to encourage their participation, to share ideas and best practices, to discuss challenges and opportunities that will allow us to grow and become sustainable, and to keep up-to-date with activities and initiatives to promote paediatric clinical research, focusing specifically on activities of the c4c network. Additionally, we are engaged on several tasks within c4c, specifically those on the development of the business concept and strategy for the sustainability of the future c4c successor organization.

We are looking forward to meeting our next challenges!