ABSTRACT
The idea of using protons for cancer treatment was first proposed in 1946 by the physicist Robert Wilson, who later became the founder and first director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). The European Network for Light Ion Hadron Therapy (ENLIGHT) has worked as an open collaborative tool and served as a common multidisciplinary platform for all the communities involved. Since its foundation, ENLIGHT has relied on the variety of skills of its members to be able to identify and tackle the technical challenges, train young researchers, support innovation and lobby for funding. The idea of creating a multi-disciplinary and transnational platform for researchers and experts involved with radiation therapy, including hadron therapy, was born in 2001 when the Proton-Ion Medical Machine Study (PIMMS) had been presented at MedAustron. Over the years, the ENLIGHT community has shown a remarkable ability to reinvent itself, while maintaining its cornerstones of multi-disciplinarity, integration, openness and attention to future generations.
