"Age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and corneal inflammation are significant causes of irreversible blindness with increasing prevalence as the EU population ages and the “diabetes epidemic” expands. There is an unmet clinical need for more effective treatments to halt or reverse these diseases.Many EU pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, with established processes for the synthesis and physiochemical characterisation of drugs, have bespoke chemical libraries and lead drugs with potential to treat ocular disease, but lack the expertise and infrastructure to test these drugs in relevant pre-clinical models. In parallel, academic labs with excellent infrastructure to study ocular disease, lack the industry expertise to appropriately develop drugs to enter clinical trials. Thus, clinical development of ocular therapeutics is impeded in the EU due to poor collaboration among academic and industry scientists.3D-NET establishes a network of industry (Gadea, KalVista & RenaSci) and academic partners (UCD & UVA), who exchange knowledge and people, and who’s combined S&T expertise will enhance the discovery and development of drugs that target ocular pathologies (retinal vessel permeability, unwanted blood vessel growth, inflammation and cell degeneration). Novel ophthalmic drugs will be discovered from unbiased screens of small molecules and developed from hits/leads and selected compounds (PI3K-inhs, lipoxins, Kallikrein-inhs, HDAC-inhs, serotonin agonists), on a set of in silico/in vitro/in vivo/ex vivo preclinical models.Expected outputs are: a) enhancing intersectoral training, career development and trans-national mobility of EU researchers, b) high impact publications/priority patent applications and c) overcoming barriers that impede industry-academia partnership in the EU inhibiting the discovery/development of new-cheaper and more effective drugs for ocular disease."