The network has three main ambitions:

• Support and stimulate network.
• Encourage to and support comparative studies.
• Creating an environment for doing international collaborative studies.

The aim, therefore, of the Ca-PRI Network is to provide a mechanism by which researchers from different countries in this field can come together and share expertise and, ideally, develop new international collaborative proposals. Further:

• primary care and cancer research could benefit from access to larger and more diverse patient populations - studies in this field have typically been based on relatively small numbers and international collaboration is one mechanism through which more substantive studies might be developed
• there is much to be gained from comparing health data in areas such as early diagnosis, screening and survivorship from different countries
• differences in diagnostic intervals, survival, screening rates etc provide important clues in elucidating the most effective roles for primary care in cancer control.