An initiative is something needed to set in motion the readiness to embark in new ventures: it is the first step of a series of actions. QUEST aims at stimulating the input from national and regional registries, i.e. the powerhouse of all registry activities, and to help the aggregation of working groups formed by national experts in various areas nominated by national societies on the basis of suggestions given by national registries.

QUEST working groups have now proposed interesting ideas for new studies and we are confident that, at least some of these can be started in the near future. Among these projects there was much common ground because most research questions were patient-centred and because there was a strong interest in guidelines goals and on the association among clinical practices and clinical outcomes.

Furthermore there was a diffusely perceived need of an intervention study of a special kind. An interesting idea conceived by Prof Christoph Wanner (working group on cardiovascular complications) is that of testing the effect of a concerted effort by doctors and nurses to focus on unmet guidelines goals (this project is presented in a separate article by Prof. Wanner in this Newsletter). The protocol of this study is almost ready and hopefully it will start in the beginning of 2007. The study aims at exploiting in full the doctor–nurse alliance and, for this reason, we have invited the EDTNA-ERCA to provide the needed advice on this study. Other ideas by other working groups will soon be announced in the ERA-EDTA Registry Newsletter.