“If you want something you never had, you have to do something you’ve never done.” So, reputedly, said a Mr Thomas Jefferson, in a different age and in a different place, but the advice remains timeless. The quotation comes to our mind as, at the time of writing, we reflect at the end of the second year of implementation for Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan1 and the EU’s Research Mission on cancer2. Seeds have not only been planted, but some are even bearing shoots.