The French Cancer Plan 2003-2007 has made translational research central to its research programme, to ensure the care-research continuum and the quickest application possible for the most recent discoveries, for the patients' benefit. This is a new field of research, still little-known or ill-understood. A working group, composed of physicians and researchers from academic research and industrial research, sought to define translational research in cancerology and define the issues at stake in it. Translational research needs to develop in close connection with the patients in order to enable a bi-directional flow of knowledge from cognitive research toward medical applications and from observations made on patients toward cognitive research. Placed under the aegis of the French National Cancer Institute and Leem Research, the group has put forth a strategy for implementing translational research in cancerology in France to make it attractive, competitive and efficient and to foster the development of public-private partnerships.