* photographs  © Michaela Greene

The PEPSCI collaboration An initiative to establish a Pan-European Paediatric Spinal Cord Injury network of specialists to investigate and standardise the  management and care of children and adolescents with Spinal Cord Injury. The PEPSCI collaboration’s mission is to improve the overall  management of a rare condition: spinal cord injury in children and  adolescents. This collaboration aims to: • Standardize acute management, rehabilitation and outpatient  care across Europe.  • Improve the understanding of neurological and functional  recovery profiles.  • Map psychosocial processes and coping after the spinal cord  injury. • Evaluate cross-cultural differences in physical and  psychosocial outcomes. The collaborators are currently preparing a survey to be sent to all outpatient contacts of involved medical centres. Through  this survey children, adolescents and their parents are invited to suggest topics of research and healthcare where  researchers and clinicians should focus on. This prioritisation exercise is a crucial, yet elaborative, preparatory phase which  will help this collaboration to tackle truly relevant issues in paediatric SCI. The results of this survey will be used to select  future topics for research projects and guidelines.  The PEPSCI collaboration is currently seeking funds to employ a project coordinator who will be overseeing data collection  from participating centres across Europe.