Table 1 The ARC Project’s research questions, studies and objectives

1. What efforts have been made to improve cancer care in LMICs and how effective have they been?

•Systematic review appraising strategies adopted by LMICs to improve access to cancer treatment and palliative care services [7].

2. What are the barriers and facilitators to establishing safe and sustainable radiotherapy services in LMICs?

•Systematic review appraising facilitators and barriers that contribute to the successful implementation of cancer treatment and palliative care improvement strategies in LMICs [7].

•Semi-structured interviews identifying and describing barriers and facilitators to establishing and sustaining radiotherapy services in LMICs [11].

•Mid-point meta-inference integrating data from the systematic review and semi-structured interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the barriers and facilitators that need to be considered by LMICs planning to develop a local radiotherapy service

3. What readiness requirements do LMICs’ need to consider when setting out to establish safe and sustainable radiotherapy services?

•Participant validation process seeking feedback from global radiotherapy experts about the utility of the potential radiotherapy service development readiness assessment requirements identified via the mid-point meta-inference [12].

•Data integration and end-point meta-inference; and presentation of the ‘REadiness SElf-Assessment (RESEA) Guide’ for LMICs establishing safe and sustainable radiotherapy services.