Lyon, 19–20 May 2016 Auditorium

Governing Council GC/58/3
Fifty-eighth Session 11/04/2016
Lyon, 19–20 May 2016
Auditorium
DIRECTOR’S REPORT
1. This Director’s Report covers the period since the 57th session of the Governing Council, and
includes data on the Key Performance Indicators for the calendar year 2015.
2. The IARC Biennial Report 2014–2015 (see document GC/58/2) provides an overview of the
full range of the Agency’s scientific achievements over the past two years. The present Report
provides complementary information and selected highlights of the Agency’s work over the
reporting period.
Highlight Events
3. The Agency’s 50th Anniversary has been a time to celebrate achievements but also to set the
future strategy and directions of the organization. The City of Lyon kindly hosted a formal
celebration at the Hôtel de Ville, immediately after the 57th session of the Governing Council. The
event was attended by current and previous IARC personnel, scientific collaborators and friends,
colleagues from WHO, Governing Council representatives, and local French dignitaries. During this
event the IARC Medals of Honour were awarded to Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Salma of
Morocco, and to Her Royal Highness Princess Dina Mired of Jordan, in recognition of their
outstanding leadership and advocacy for cancer control worldwide. The Agency also marked this
occasion with the publication of a book “IARC: the first 50 years, 1965–2015” providing an
overview of the Agency’s origins, development and major contributions.
4. The new IARC Medium-Term Strategy (2016–2020) (MTS) was launched in January, building
on a vision of conducting “cancer research for cancer prevention”. The 50th Anniversary
celebrations will conclude this year with a major international conference which is taking place on
the 7–10 June in Lyon. The scope of the conference is aligned with the themes of the IARC MTS
and is entitled: “Global cancer occurrence, causes and avenues to prevention”. The conference will
bridge cancer research through to cancer control and policy.
5. As well as bringing some of the most renowned cancer research experts in the world to the
conference, IARC is giving fifty emerging cancer researchers from low-and middle-income
countries (LMICs) the opportunity to attend the conference and to participate in a dedicated
pre-conference workshop “Fostering Leadership in Cancer Research” on 6–7 June. The purpose of
this “50 for 50” initiative is to support the development of the next generation of cancer research
leaders in the developing world, leaving a legacy of the first 50 years of IARC’s existence.

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This opportunity was only possible through the generous support of donors, including a number of
IARC Participating States.
6. The IARC “Junior Investigator Awards” were launched in 2015 with the aim of encouraging
junior investigators working at the Agency to develop innovative, high-risk research projects and
to gain experience as a principal investigator in obtaining competitive research funding.
The awards are open to students, post-doctoral fellows, and staff up to and including P2 level
(e.g. technicians, statistical assistants, database managers, scientists, etc.). In 2016–17, after
peer-review by Scientific Council members, the Director made four awards from among the
20 applications with a total investment of €83 750. Overall the quality of the applications was
extremely high.
Strategic Partnerships
7. At the 57th session of the Governing Council, the Agency was pleased to welcome Morocco as
its 25th IARC Participating State, the first from the African continent. This is a reflection of the
growing collaborations between IARC and Moroccan scientists and is a testimony to Morocco’s
commitment to develop cancer research internally and regionally. This step is also consistent with
the Agency’s ongoing effort to broaden the participation on the Governing Council to countries
from underrepresented regions. Over the past year the Director continued to engage in high-level
discussions with countries that have expressed an interest in becoming IARC Participating States in
the future.
8. IARC is fully engaged in the activities of the United Nations Interagency Task Force (UNIATF)
on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs). The Task Force was
established by the UN Secretary-General in 2013 to coordinate the activities of UN organizations
and other inter-governmental agencies, supporting governments to meet commitments made in
the 2011 UN Political Declaration on NCDs. Two of the four joint projects currently being
developed in the context of the UNIATF are on cancer: a joint project between IARC, WHO and
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supporting cancer prevention and control in LMICs;
and a project on cervical cancer involving seven UN organizations and inter-governmental agencies
including IARC. The Agency has been actively involved in planning both projects, which are
expected to begin implementation in 2016–17.
9. In parallel with these initiatives the Agency continued to develop its network of partnerships
with regional organizations. Notably, in February 2016 the Director received representatives of the
Latin-American Network of National Cancer Institutes (“Red de Institutos Nacionales de Cáncer” –
RINC) to discuss IARC’s participation in the Regional Plan of Integrated Actions for Prevention and
Control of Cervical Cancer in South America, an initiative of the Council of Ministers of the UNASUR
(an intergovernmental organization comprising 12 South American countries) coordinated by the
RINC. The Agency will support this initiative by providing technical expertise, including through the
participation of one of its senior scientists in the Executive Committee. The collaboration builds on
the successful partnership developed over the last few years with the RINC, in particular through
IARC’s participation in two Working Groups, in the areas of cervical cancer and cancer registration.

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10. The Director hosted a meeting with senior representatives of the European Commission’s
(EC) Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) and the Joint Research Centre,
Institute for Health and Consumer Protection (JRC-IHCP). The meeting helped outline the areas
and modalities for collaborative work between IARC and these organizations, notably in cancer
registration, cancer screening and the European Code against Cancer. The Director also hosted a
visit by the European Union (EU) Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Dr Vytenis Andriukaitis
to discuss areas of common interest, including the importance of cancer prevention in Europe.
11. One aspect of IARC’s remit, emphasized during the preparation of the new IARC MTS
(2016–2020), is to help shape the international cancer research agenda. In this context, the
Agency has been committed to promoting investment in cancer prevention, as a necessary
complement to cancer treatment. One specific opportunity has come through the EC-funded
EurocanPlatform project where IARC took the lead in the area of cancer prevention. This
culminated in an international workshop at the Agency in July 2015 and the production of a
position paper entitled “Cancer Prevention: where are we and where do we need to be”. The
Agency is formally a member of the EC Cancer Expert Group, comprised predominantly of EU
Member States and it is planned to present this paper for further discussion to the Expert Group in
the coming year.
12. There is a severe shortage of trained cancer pathologists in many LMICs combined with a
lack of validated protocols and guidelines for pathology reporting appropriate to the conditions and
technologies available in these regions. In June 2015 IARC signed a Memorandum of
Understanding with the International Collaboration on Cancer Reporting (ICCR), an umbrella
organization linking five leading pathology societies (from Australasia, Canada, Europe, the
United Kingdom and the United States) to collaborate on the development of standardized,
evidence-based cancer pathology datasets to improve the quality of cancer pathology reporting
worldwide. The agreement also enables coordination between the preparation of the WHO
Classification of Tumours series by IARC and the standard reporting being developed by the ICCR.
International ranking
13. A series of key performance indicators (KPIs) are presented each year in the Director’s
Report, to enable monitoring of trends in the Agency’s performance in specific areas.
14. Since the 54th session of the Governing Council, results from the SCImago Institutions
Rankings (SIR – http://www.scimagoir.com) have been included in the Director’s report, as
indicators of the quality and impact of the Agency’s research. This is one of the most
comprehensive international rankings of research organizations based on bibliometric analyses of
publications output. It is compiled by an independent organization and has the advantage of
providing an impartial assessment, enabling comparison between institutes with the same or
similar research profiles. Unfortunately this year SCImago have not yet released an updated
analysis of publications for 2015.
15. Another independent international comparison of publications output quality, “Mapping
Scientific Excellence” (www.excellencemapping.net), listed IARC in the 27th and 30th position for

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“Best Paper Rate” and “Best Journal Rate” respectively1 out of 1593 institutions in the “Medicine”
category (12th and 17th last year out of 1309 institutions), i.e. within the top 2% of institutions.
16. The limitations of bibliometric-based rankings are well recognized and their results need to
be interpreted with caution, however they do provide an independent assessment that is
comparable year-on-year. The Agency’s continuing strong performance amongst the leading
medical research institutes and amongst the top specialized cancer research centres is one
testimony to the high-quality and impact of the research it conducts with its collaborators
worldwide.
Publications
17. In 2015, Agency scientists published a total of 342 articles in 150 journals, of which
300 (88%) were peer-reviewed papers. The total number of articles was similar to recent years,
with the proportion of peer-reviewed papers slightly higher, consolidating the increases observed
from preceding years (see Table 1).
Table 1: Publications – Articles
Year Peer-reviewed
papers
Letters to
Editor or
comments
Invited
reviews Editorials, news, other Total
2012
249 (76%)
15
29
33
326
2013
287 (84%)
6
35
13
341
2014
299 (84%)
12
30
16
357
2015
300 (88%)
11
17
14
342
18. Articles published by IARC scientists in 2015 were assessed in relation to the percentage
appearing in the top 20% of journals in their subject category, according to the classification in the
Thomson Reuters databases (Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports – see Table 2). Overall,
62% of articles were published in the top 20% of journals in their subject categories, comparable
to previous years (60% in 2014, 66% in 2013, 65% in 2012, and 57% in 2011).
19. Oncology and Public, Environmental and Occupational Health comprise the top two
categories, accounting for a large proportion of the papers published (~60% of the total). The
percentage of papers in the top 20% of journals in these two categories varied slightly in relation
to the previous year (55% and 72% respectively), but these fluctuations do not follow a set trend
and are likely to at least partially reflect year-on-year variations in journal rankings.
1 “Best Paper Rate” is an indicator of the probability of publishing highly cited papers (proportion of
publications from a given institution in the 10% most cited publications in their subject area and publication
year) and “Best Journal Rate” is an indicator of the probability of publishing in the most influential journals
(ratio of papers published in the top quartile journals in their subject areas); institutions were included in the
analysis if they had more than 500 publications in this category in the period 2008–2012.

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20. As pointed out before, in interpreting these bibliometric indicators it is important to recognize
the limitations of this approach, and to emphasize the importance of publishing with collaborators
from LMICs in journals that may not be the highest ranking but do ensure the dissemination and
impact of work of local or regional relevance.
Table 2: IARC publications in top 20% of journals in their subject category in 2015
(only the top 5 subject categories for IARC papers published in 2015 are shown)
JOURNAL SUBJECT
CATEGORY
No.
Journals
in SCa
Highest
IF in SC 20% IF of SCb No. publ.
in SC
No. publ.
in top
20%
% in
top
20%
ONCOLOGY
209
144.8
4.4
147
101
69%
PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL &
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH 164 10.0 2.9 61 34 56%
NUTRITION DIETETICS
77
10.0
3.7
33
12
36%
MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES
57
41.5
2.2
28
28
100%
GENETICS & HEREDITY
167
37.0
4.6
22
15
68%
Legend: IF = Impact Factor; SC = Subject Category
a A given journal can appear in more than one subject category.
b This figure represents the impact factor of the journal at the limit of the 20% top journals.
21. On occasion the Agency liaises with publishers to produce “special issues” of journals
dedicated to a particular topic. There were two notable examples developed during the reporting
period:
• The journal Cancer Epidemiology published in December 2015 a special issue on the
4th Edition of the European Code Against Cancer (Cancer Epidemiology, Volume 39,
Supplement 1, Pages S1–S152), a project coordinated by IARC with financial support from the
EC. The special issue contains 14 articles written by the working groups of experts who
formulated the Code, detailing the rationale and scientific evidence underpinning the
recommendations.
• The same journal is scheduled to publish in mid-2016 a special issue on Cancer in Central and
South America. This will present the results of a collaboration between IARC and RINC, guided
by an Editorial Board comprised of regional experts and additional international collaborators.
The project analysed data from 18 countries and 53 cancer registries in the region. The
special issue will include an overview and 14 cancer site-specific articles, where the descriptive
epidemiology of each cancer site is presented in depth. Supplementary material on etiological
factors as well as on preventive measures implemented in the region for each of the cancers
will be provided online at IARC’s website.
22. The total number of IARC books sold in 2015 was 12 838 copies (see Table 3), with over
95% of sales from the “Blue Books”, the WHO Classification of Tumours Series. This represents a
slight drop in sales in relation to recent years, probably reflecting differences in the timing of
release of the “Blue Books” volumes between years.