An initiative by the International Cancer Research Partnership (ICRP; chaired by S.B.R.) is helping to address the problem of duplicate funding for similar research (Nature 493, 577; 2013 and Nature 493, 599–601; 2013).

The ICRP represents 56 cancer-research organizations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Australia and Japan. It curates a publicly accessible database of details of each partner's funding and research (see go.nature.com/ckanbr).

Around one-third of our partners ask grant applicants to interrogate this database for overlapping and complementary research. Other partners use the database as an internal administrative tool to assess potential duplication of effort. The process is straightforward because all awards are structured using an international classification system known as the Common Scientific Outline.

At the ICRP, we believe that cancer research should be a coordinated and collaborative global enterprise, with maximally efficient use of scarce resources. We therefore invite other cancer-research organizations to join us in order to meet these objectives.