Statement of principles:

• 1. We seek to achieve for brain tumour* patients, their families and their carers a wider public recognition of the specific challenges which they face in dealing with their disease.

• 2. We support moves towards greater international collaboration between brain tumour support, advocacy and information groups.

• 3. We pledge to work to advance these aims in co-operation with like-minded organisations and individuals, including relevant government agencies, health professional organisations, pharmaceutical companies, cancer organisations, clinicians and research institutes and other patient advocacy organisations.

• 4. We aim to offer encouragement and hope to those in the international brain tumour community who reside in countries where brain tumour support, advocacy and information groups do not yet exist, helping ensure that no-one who is living with a brain tumour feels isolated and forgotten. We also aim to encourage the creation of brain tumour/CNS support groups in countries where they do not exist.

• 5. We seek a greater emphasis by research bodies in identifying causes of brain tumours and the development of more effective therapies, and also seek to encourage greater collaboration among researchers to reduce duplication. We seek a greater input of funding from the community, governments and industry, to support such research and development.

• 6. We advocate the development of improved access to a multi-disciplinary specialist range of services, including palliative care, rehabilitation (speech, neuropsychology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, etc) and psychosocial support, to ensure that services are at all times appropriate to the needs of people living with a brain tumour and their families.

• 7. We support the development and implementation of a system of standardized data collection on benign, low-grade and malignant CNS tumours, to serve as a foundation for research that promotes improved care and treatment and which ultimately leads to cures, and which will also inform service delivery.

• 8. We support the development of a database of research projects relevant to brain tumours and encourage all those undertaking such research to be members of their relevant professional organisation.

• 9. We intend that each group in the collaboration project will continue to serve the brain tumour community in accordance with their own purpose. But at the same time, we acknowledge that there is strength in numbers and that each participating group can contribute to the power of the single collaboration effort for the good of brain tumour patients, their families and carers.

• 10. We seek to instill a greater measure of hope within the international brain tumour community by celebrating the courage and achievements of brain tumour survivors, sharing knowledge and working together to achieve progress.

• 11. We pledge our support to those charged with the responsibility for developing an appropriate international collaborative structure so that these objectives may be achieved. We see the organisation as being collaborative, rather than hierarchical.

* Any reference to the words ‘brain tumour’ includes all Central Nervous System (CNS) tumours.