We are funded as the Cancer Survival Group by a range of charities and government institutions in the UK and overseas, to quantify, describe and explain patterns and trends in cancer survival by socio-economic group, geographic area and ethnicity, in collaboration with many research partners in the UK and around the world. We develop methodology and tools for survival analysis. We maintain tools for cancer survival analysis that we make freely accessible online.

In August 2008, we published the first world-wide comparison of cancer survival, including data for 1.9 million patients diagnosed up to 1999 with a cancer of the breast (F), colon, rectum or prostate in 31 countries on five continents (CONCORD study).

In March 2015, we initiated global surveillance of time trends in cancer survival, by analysing individual data for 25.7 million patients diagnosed during the 15 years 1995-2009 with one of 10 common cancers, in collaboration with 279 cancer registries in 67 countries world-wide (CONCORD-2 study).

In January 2018, we updated the global surveillance of cancer survival trends with individual data on over 37 million adults and children diagnosed during 2000-2014with one of 18 cancers in 71 countries (CONCORD-3). Selected survival estimates have been included by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development in Health at a Glance 2017 as indicators of the quality of healthcare for cancer in 48 countries.