The ‘CONCERT-European Joint Programme for the Integration of Radiation Protection Research’ under Horizon 2020 aims to contribute to the sustainable integration of European and national research programmes in radiation protection. CONCERT as a co-fund action strives to achieve the attraction and pooling of national research efforts in Radiation Protection with EURATOM research programmes in order to make better use of public R&D resources and to tackle common European challenges in radiation protection more effectively by joint research efforts in key areas. In order to rise to this challenge CONCERT is operating as an umbrella structure for the research initiatives of the radiation protection research platforms MELODI, ALLIANCE, NERIS, EURADOS and EURAMED. Given the limited, indeed even diminishing resources available nationally, in Europe and globally for research on radiation effects in humans and the environment and for radiation protection, and the loss of scientific as well as professional competence in recent years, every opportunity needs to be taken to tailor research activities to the needs of society, authorities and stakeholders, to develop synergies and economies of scale between national competent institutions in this field, particularly to link access to research infrastructures to international research efforts, and to optimise impact of the EURATOM RTD programme by further integrating the radiation protection related education and training activities across Europe. CONCERT strives to stimulate the contribution of Member States to the development of a joint European strategic research agenda (SRA) in the field of radiation protection. This research agenda has to be multidisciplinary in science, tailored to societal needs, make full use of newly gained knowledge in all disciplines of life sciences and humanities and to fully integrate education and training especially for the young generation to build up and maintain competences needed for a successful, harmonious and sustainable radiation protection regime in Europe today and in future. Within CONCERT two open research calls (2016/2017) were launched to strengthen the scientific research in strategic priority areas of radiation protection defined by the European radiation research platforms. Research groups from all over Europe had the opportunity to join in research consortia and submit proposals. Among the 37 project proposals that were submitted to the two open RTD calls, nine projects have been selected for funding.