Improving social psychiatric treatment in residential programmes for emerging dependence groups in Europe: cross‐border networking, methodological innovations and substantive discoveries

A mini‐symposium series of papers presenting the results of the European Commission‐supported Biomed II project is introduced. The project accomplished a cross‐border scientific networking engaging 31 European residential treatment programmes. The results showed that scientific development is best served by a flexible bureaucratic approach. ‘Old’ science and the ‘new’ science ways of working were balanced. ‘History’ and ‘social networks’ are the key concepts signalling the project knowledge gains. A treatment sample (N=723) was extracted from a database of 1028 current European cases. Non‐drug‐specific characteristics are as important as drug‐specific characteristics in distinguishing emerging dependence groups. The project networking created a process that increased the level of involvement of science and the service communities. To sustain the gains of the project, a reaching out of existing European treatment services to extended family and friendship networks with a history of dependence‐related problems will be required.