The Conference held in Nicosia (Cyprus) on October 3oth, 2012was attended by stakeholders (patients, patient organisations, healthcare professionals, cares, academics, researchers, public health officials and policy-makers from all levels (national, regional and EU) from the 27 Member States of the EU, from other countries that are Member States of the Council of Europe, as well as from neighbouring countries, to discuss avenues of action to tackle the growing public health burden of chronic and rare diseases in the European region of the W.H.O. The DEEP Project was presented by Evi Missouri-Khetab: see full text.