Our approach to improve research and care for children with cancer

KickCancer stands out in Belgium’s cancer landscape. We operate independently, collaboratively (with all stakeholders), and strategically, tackling the structural barriers that slow down progress. Our European outlook reflects a simple truth: childhood cancer is rare, and advancing research requires international scale and shared expertise. Our foundation is one of the very few Belgian NGOs funding paediatric oncology research beyond our national borders, and the only one dedicated entirely to children, adolescents and young adults with cancer.

KickCancer’s work is structured around four pillars to achieve its mission: financing research, advocacy, patient empowerment and raising awareness.

We want to cure every child with cancer and offer them the best possible quality of life during treatment — free from acute side effects such as nausea or fatigue — and to ensure they can thrive once treatment is completed, without long-term consequences such as learning difficulties or amputations.

KickCancer contributes in two ways:

1. We fund clinical trials: these studies give children access to innovative drugs in a safe and ethical environment, ensuring that treatments continue to improve for future patients.

2. We fund fundamental and translational research: such projects deepen our understanding of how paediatric cancers develop and behave. In the long run, they can lead to the development of new drugs and help identify specific subgroups of patients.

FIGHT KIDS CANCER: KickCancer finances innovative research projects in Europe

Because - fortunately - each paediatric cancer is a very rare disease, KickCancer chooses to support only the best research projects with a European scope, which is the only way to guarantee a satisfactory recruitment of patients.

In order to select the best projects, we have set up a watertight selection process together with other European organisations, Imagine for Margo (France), the Kriibskrank Kanner Fondatioun (Luxembourg), CRIS Cancer Foundation (Spain), KiKa (the Netherlands): the FIGHT KIDS CANCER annual call for European projects.

Discover our FIGHT KIDS CANCER projects

BSPHO : KickCancer collaborates with the Belgian physicians to ensure access to international clinical trials for Belgian patients

In Belgium, most young patients are treated within the framework of a clinical trial and this from the diagnosis. These are in most instances late-phase clinical trials.

The clinical trials' protocols are defined at the European level, but the financing of the projects often has to be sought by each participating country or site.

In Belgium, the Belgian Society for Paediatric Haemato-Oncology (BSPHO) coordinates and initiates the participation of the Belgian centres in international academic clinical trials. These trials ensure access to the best care for young patients treated in Belgium and a sustained participation of our oncology centres in the European research effort.

Discover our collaboration with the BSPHO

If curing all children with cancer were easy… we bet it would have been “solved” a long time ago. 

In the real world, making sure that better treatments reach patients in hospitals requires a proper alignment of the stars.

The right regulations for drug development must be in place; public authorities must understand the problems patients face before diagnosis, during treatment and after remission; and there must be structured engagement with the pharmaceutical industry to show how it can help young patients.

This is why KickCancer has been an activist from the very beginning.

Find out about our advocacy work on the Belgian and European levels

Improve the quality of care for paediatric cancer patients

KickCancer’s Patients Committee gives young patients and their parents a platform to voice their views and help shape both research and the care journey of children, adolescents, and young adults (AYAs) with cancer and their families.

Families affected by cancer are warmly invited to discover how to stay informed, get involved or share their experience.

Find out more about our patient activities

Helping everyone understand paediatric cancer and its specific challenges

Curing more children with cancer and making sure that long term side effects caused by the current treatments are reduced starts with understanding and acknowledging there is a problem.

That is why KickCancer invests its energy in clear and consistent communication. We highlight key messages about paediatric cancer so that patients and the wider public understand its specificities and the solutions proposed by KickCancer.

Broad public support is essential to finance more research and to advocate for a regulatory and cultural framework that will help foster more research and the development of better treatments for young patients with cancer.

Keep an eye on our website, social media, and upcoming campaigns. You can easily join the awareness movement by sharing our content (e.g. RUN TO KICK, Éclair Day…). 

Together, we make childhood cancer impossible to ignore.