Ilia State University is pleased to announce that the ACTS project has started, with consortium partners gathering in Yerevan, Armenia, on 13–14 October 2026 for its kick-off meeting. The meeting marked the launch of a five-year international collaboration to integrate evidence-based tobacco cessation services into routine healthcare.

The project’s full title is “Accelerating Tobacco Cessation within Healthcare Systems of European LMICs: A Multi-Country Implementation-Effectiveness Trial.” Funded under the prestigious Horizon Europe programme, ACTS was one of only 4 successful projects selected from 158 submitted proposals. This achievement reflects the exceptionally competitive selection process and represents an important success for Ilia State University and its partners.

ACTS is co-led by Ilia State University and University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf. David Otiashvili serves as the project’s scientific lead. The project focuses on cutting-edge implementation research: understanding how effective support for quitting tobacco can become a sustainable part of everyday healthcare.

The study will be implemented across Georgia, Armenia, Serbia, and Albania through a large-scale implementation-effectiveness trial. It will examine both how tobacco cessation services can be integrated into healthcare and how well they help patients. By bridging the gap between evidence-based treatments and routine clinical practice, ACTS aims to reduce the devastating burden of non-communicable diseases.

The consortium brings together 12 partners from 9 countries: Georgia, Germany, Albania, Armenia, Serbia, Belgium, Czechia, Italy, and the United Kingdom. This partnership combines research and healthcare expertise to support lasting improvements in tobacco cessation services.

With the project now underway, ACTS will work to strengthen health systems and make effective help to quit tobacco more widely available.