Diabetes, Cardiovascular and Chronic kidney (DCC) -diseases are relentlessly increasing globally, causing enormous human suffering, premature deaths and unsustainable costs. Leading European research has indisputably pointed that the kidney filtration barrier and its epithelial cell, the podocyte, is a common denominator for the DCC-diseases. However, European excellence and expertise have remained uncoordinated in separate pockets and, consequently, underutilised for full societal benefits and capacity creation to combat the challenges of diabetic, hypertensive and primary kidney diseases. Notably, these diseases are of major healthcare interest and of key importance for discovery intensive biopharma industry.KidneyConnect brings together teams of excellence to underpin nationally funded programs under a) Discovery and Future Technologies b) New Research Platforms c) Translational and d) Clinical Podocyte Research to create connected capacities, access to well trained talents and to optimize strategies for industry-academia cowork. In addition to resource maps, KidneyConnect supports international congresses, training courses, talent coaching, special seminars and builds systematically relations to key stakeholders. Due to the limited funds available, main aims are to provide roadmaps for future efforts, outlines for shared data -and sample repositories, targeted training, societal outreach and, as a result, competitive European funded programs. Our events are arranged as satellites of established meetings and supported by in-kind contribution from partners. The goal is to establish faster translation from discovery to clinical practices by creating dynamic networks, sustainable capacities and outlines for improved kidney disease management. High cohesion and shared resources together with the most prominent European authorities included will guarantee optimized resource usage. Substantial benefits and competitiveness in the huge global markets are to be expected