EpiCARE Research Council

The INNOMEM Open Calls have been extended until January 31st, 2023! Submit your application here to access the services offered by the project sustainable Open Innovation Test Bed to foster deployment and scale-up of innovative nano-enabled membranes and their derived products. Take a look at the INNOMEM catalogue to discover what services you can get from the project OITB: among them you will be able to access all of the PNO Consultants research and innovation services.

Want to discover more? Contact the OPEN CALL HELPDESK: opencall-helpdesk@innomem.eu. Learn more about INNOMEM visiting the website.

Deadline:2 February 2023

Indicative budget: 2 EUR million for a period of 5 years. However, an additional € 1 million can be made available to cover eligible “start-up” costs for researchers moving from a third country to the EU or an associated country and/or the purchase of major equipment and/or access to large facilities and/or other major experimental and field work costs.

Are you a scientist who wants to consolidate your independence by establishing a research team and continuing to develop a success career in Europe? The ERC Consolidator Grant could be for you. You can also apply if you have recently created an independent, excellent research team and want to strengthen it.

Who can apply?

Researchers of any nationality with 7-12 years of experience since completion of PhD (Extensions are possible under certain circumstances)

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Rare Epilepsy Partnership Award (1 year / $100,000) will support the development of necessary research tools, techniques, model systems, and data collection platforms to stimulate and accelerate research on rare epilepsies. Each award will be co-funded by CURE Epilepsy and one or more of the rare epilepsy advocacy groups (partners) identified in the Request For Proposals. Applications must focus on one or more of the specific rare epilepsies that are represented by each group as well as address CURE Epilepsy’s mission to cure epilepsy.

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This European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) call is open to both new organisations and existing partners from the pilot and second call for proposals.

Budget: Up to 16 projects will receive a maximum of €750 000: €350 000 for Phase 1 (May−Dec 2023) and €400 000 for Phase 2 (Jan−July 2024).

Deadline: 28.02.2023

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Deadline:8 March 2023

Indicative budget: 77.5 EUR million

The SE action funds short-term international and inter-sectoral exchanges of staff members involved in research and innovation activities of participating organisations. The aim is to develop sustainable collaborative projects between different organisations from the academic and non-academic sectors (in particular SMEs), based in Europe and beyond. Exchanged staff benefit from new knowledge, skills and career development perspectives, while participating organisations increase their research and innovation capacities.

Who can apply for Staff Exchanges?

Staff Exchanges are open to international consortia of universities, research institutions, businesses, SMEs and other non-academic organisations. They need to include

• at least three organisations in three different countries, two of which need to be located in a different EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country
• above this minimum, the participation of organisations from any country is possible
• if all participating organisations are from the same sector (academic or non-academic), at least one must be from a non-associated Third Country

What does the funding cover?

Staff Exchanges projects can last up to four years. The grant funds the mobility of seconded staff members from one month to one year. Staff involved should return to their sending organisations after the secondment, to pass on their knowledge.

Deadline: 15/03/2023

Indicative budget: EUR 10 000 000

Link: https://www.ihi.europa.eu/apply-funding/future-opportunities

Expected impacts to be achieved by this topic

The following impacts are expected:

• Patients benefit from preventive treatment or early disease intervention before onset of symptoms.
• Prevention and early diagnosis of disease, combined with better understanding of the mechanisms involved, leads to the development of more cost-effective interventions and strategies.
• Increased availability of validated biomarkers for disease interception and diagnosis, tested in real-world settings.
• Advanced analytics/artificial intelligence supporting health R&I, resulting in wider availability of personalised health interventions to end-users.

Deadline: 15/03/2023

Indicative budget: between EUR 8 000 000 and EUR 10 000 000

The following impacts are expected:

• Enable the added value of people-centred integrated healthcare solutions to be assessed according to criteria that matter to patients and citizens, using patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), patient preference information (PPI), and patient-reported experience measures (PREMs).
• Facilitate the development and implementation of integrated healthcare solutions based on patient input including PROMs, PPI, and PREMs. These solutions should better respond to the needs and preferences of patients and citizens and support an inclusive approach.
• Enable the smart use of patient input and patient generated evidence to facilitate the faster market entry of patient-centric and cost-effective advanced integrated care solutions, and also spur further innovation by improving return on research and innovation investments.
• Use patient input gathered via m-health and e-health technologies to gain improved insights into the reallife behaviour of, and challenges faced by, patients of all ages with complex, chronic diseases and comorbidities.

Expected outcomes:

• Decision makers have new methods for the integration of PROMs, PPI, and PREMs and other peoplegenerated information into regulatory and health technology assessment evaluation processes for integrated healthcare solutions.
• Patients of all ages have access to novel integrated healthcare solutions that are developed using structured patient input and better respond to their needs and preferences.
• Researchers have new methodological approaches to elicit and integrate patient preferences into the conception, development, and implementation of integrated healthcare solutions.
• Researchers have wider access to interoperable, quality patient input and patient generated data, respecting the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) principles, facilitating research and development of integrated healthcare solutions.
• Researchers are provided with new outcomes, outcome measures and the time horizon over which value should be assessed to develop appropriate tools and methods for collection and analysis of PROMs, PPI, and PREMs.

Deadline: 15/03/2023

Indicative budget: between EUR 8 000 000 and EUR 10 000 000

Link: https://www.ihi.europa.eu/apply-funding/future-opportunities

Expected impacts to be achieved by this topic

The following impacts are expected:

• Improve outcomes of hospital care and foster faster recovery by overcoming issues of fragmentation through combining innovative interventional approaches.
• New and improved evaluation methodologies and models for a comprehensive assessment of the addedvalue of the combining innovative interventional approaches and clinical decision support systems.
• Seamless and successful implementation in hospital settings of cross-sectoral innovations, integrated products and services delivering proven benefits to patients, healthcare systems, including hospital staffing and society as a whole.
• Advanced analytics/artificial intelligence (AI) supporting health R&I, resulting in improved clinical decision support for increased efficacy of treatment

Expected outcomes

• Patients will be offered improved, evidence based innovative hospital treatment combinations that lead to better outcomes.
• Healthcare professionals will have access to improved clinical decision support systems that will recommend personalised treatments using patient-specific datasets collected in the hospital setting.
• Healthcare systems will have better evidence on cost-effective combinations of interventions and how these combinations can address hospital staffing challenges.
• Researchers will have improved information on treatment combinations to facilitate the development of improved interventions.

Deadline: 15/03/2023

Indicative budget: around EUR 20 000 000 to 30 000 000

Link: https://www.ihi.europa.eu/apply-funding/future-opportunities

Expected impacts to be achieved by this topic

• Patients with rare diseases, especially underserved rare diseases, benefit from an increased availability of effective and safe ATMPs and other innovative therapeutic modalities.
• The development of ATMPs and other innovative therapeutic modalities for rare disorders (which are frequently genetically defined) will be streamlined thanks to enhanced scientific and technological processes.
• Europe becomes more attractive for developing ATMPs thanks to the availability of sustained, interconnected technological centres of excellence that could be linked to and would benefit from the activities of clinical networks, including the European Reference Networks (ERNs) on rare diseases. This would provide a more efficient and effective path for the development of therapies for patients with rare diseases.
• Although focused on rare diseases, the ability of centres of excellence to improve the development of ATMPs and other innovative therapeutic modalities is anticipated to benefit a broader range of diseases beyond rare diseases.

Expected outcomes

• A sustainable network of interconnected centres of excellence with all relevant stakeholders engaged, that should: i. be accessible by all involved in the development of ATMPs and other innovative therapeutic modalities, including the research community, academia, clinics, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), healthcare, biotech, medical technology and pharmaceutical companies, patient organisations, ii. represent the most promising, impactful, translatable, quality-controlled technologies that facilitate the development of ATMPs and other innovative therapeutic modalities such as use of nucleic acids and nanoparticle (NPs) delivery for gene editing.
• Agreed standards that support the early generation of ATMPs and other innovative therapeutic modalities.
• A streamlined and more transparent regulatory pathway to optimise and speed up the development and delivery of ATMPs and other innovative therapeutic modalities for rare diseases for the benefit of patients, caeers, healthcare systems and the society.
• Improved technologies/processes, analytic tools, methods, assays useful for the development and support of all ATMPs and other innovative therapeutic modalities, beyond those targeting underserved rare diseases.

EIC Accelerator Open has no predefined thematic priorities and is open to proposals in any field of technology or application. The EIC Accelerator supports the later stages of technology development as well as scale up. The technology component of your innovation must therefore have been tested and validated in a laboratory or other relevant environment (e.g. at least Technology Readiness Level 5 or higher). The EIC Accelerator looks to support companies where the EIC support will act as a catalyst to crowd in other investors necessary for the scale up of the innovation. The EIC Accelerator focuses on innovations building on scientific discovery or technological breakthroughs (‘deep tech’) and where significant funding is needed over a long timeframe before returns can be generated (‘patient capital’). Such innovations often struggle to attract financing because the risks and time period involved are too high. Funding and support from the EIC Accelerator is designed to enable such innovators to attract the full investment amounts needed for scale up in a shorter timeframe.

Deadline: 22 March 2023

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Deadline for submission (single stage): April 13, 2023

Total budget: €25M

Budget per project: 4-6 M€

Objective

• Development of various methods of modeling and simulation as tools to meet regulatory needs in the clinical development cycle of new products for rare and pediatric diseases
• Establish a multidisciplinary approach for assessing the utility of mature computational models, as tools for supporting the optimal design of innovative clinical trials for small populations and as fit-for-purpose solutions for enabling the regulatory scientific advice and marketing authorisation assessment of orphan and/or paediatric medicines, including their pharmacovigilance follow-up. Evaluate validated in silico models for their ability to increase statistical robustness, improve the assessment of the benefit/risk ratio in small populations, and for their accuracy in predicting and extrapolate therapeutic effects.
• Calibrate and optimise mature computational models for enhancing their clinical performance, by using relevant sources of patient data (e.g. natural history and observational clinical studies, medical records, registries, pharmacovigilance and longitudinal studies etc.). The models should include a variety of modelling methods and in particular hybrid solutions linking quantitative mechanistic modelling with advanced statistical modelling (e.g. quantitative systems pharmacology, disease mechanistic models, physiology-based pharmacodynamic/pharmacokinetic models, Bayesian modelling, artificial intelligence algorithms etc.).
• Assess validated in-silico models for their capability to increase the statistical robustness, improve the risk/benefit assessment in small population clinical trials, and for their accuracy to predict and extrapolate the therapeutic and dose effects, taking into account the patient’s genotypes/phenotypes, disease characteristics/stage variables and/or clinical/surrogate endpoints for delivering robust evidence of safety and efficacy of the orphan and paediatric medicines under study.
• Benchmark of diverse computational models by showcasing their simulation performance in virtual patient cohorts and by demonstrating that the models’ synthetic data estimates match to actual clinical trial data

Deadline for submission (single stage): April 13, 2023

Budget: EUR 1.00 million

Proposals should address all of the following aspects:

– Develop a structured system of exchange of information between policy makers, funders, and other relevant bodies128 in order to establish synergies and avoid duplication of efforts.

The aim is to structure brain health research in Europe and pave the way for a possible future partnership.

-Develop a strategic research and innovation agenda, taking into account the efforts already undertaken by EU-supported actions. The strategic research and innovation agenda will identify a number of measurable, scientific-technological priorities and socio-economic objectives, supported by an appropriate analysis.

-Develop plans for a governance structure of a future partnership, as well as implementation modalities with long-term sustainability in mind, and under the leadership of an EU Member State or Associated Country.

-Ensure a broad geographical representation of European countries and plan for inclusion of all main related research initiatives, as well as key organisations and associations. In this way, the coordination action should reflect the ‘umbrella’ role of a future initiative that will structure brain health research in Europe, and make it more impactful.

– Consider international initiatives by engaging with global organisations, as well as with global initiatives and research organisations in the field.

– Elaborate on platforms and tools for use by the research community, including on how they can best complement, integrate with each other. In this context, infrastructures already developed at the European or national level that enable sharing of samples, quality data and advanced analytical tools should be included in the analysis. Reflections should also be made on how the future initiative can contribute to the development of the European Health Data Space.

Deadline for submission (single stage): April 13, 2023

Total budget: €35M

Budget per project: 8-10 M€

Objective

• Integration of health data from multiple sources (electronic patient records, genomics, medical imaging, laboratory and diagnostic results pathogen data, public registries and other clinical research data) by linking real-life and clinical data

• Exemplify the integration of data across multiple case studies within or across multiple medical fields. At least one of the case studies must use whole genome sequencing data.
• New approaches to assemble large, easily findable and lawfully accessible high-quality datasets integrating multiple types of health data leading to improved clinical outcomes (e.g. new care solutions, personalised disease management, advanced diagnostic tools)
• New techniques, support tools, mechanisms and modalities to enable RGPD compliant access to sensitive personal data and to enable their reuse
• Development of a data analytics platform applying distributed learning and artificial intelligence approaches to query and aggregate efficiently, effectively and securely data from multiple sources for multiple use cases (groups of diseases), to monitor patients’ health status, analyse causal inference, support diagnosis and health policy-makers, and establish recommendations for patients and other stakeholders.

Deadline for submission (single stage): April 13, 2023

Total budget: €50M

Budget per project: 8-10 M€

Objective

-> To consolidate existing virtual twin models to move towards an integrated digital twin, with the goal of accelerating translational research towards the more cost-effective development of new health technologies

-Develop multi-scale, multi-organ, dynamic, interoperable and modular computer
capable of accurately simulating the pathophysiology of an individual patient, covering different anatomical scales.
– Implement proof-of-concept and feasibility studies in relevant end-user environments to validate the developed models.
– Involve relevant “Human and Social Sciences” expertise in the design and conduct of the
of the project.

Deadline:23 May 2023

Indicative budget: € 2.5 million for a period of 5 years. However, an additional € 1 million can be made available to cover eligible “start-up” costs for researchers moving from a third country to the EU or an associated country and/or the purchase of major equipment and/or access to large facilities and/or other major experimental and field work costs.

Are you an established, leading principal investigator who wants long-term funding to pursue a ground-breaking, high-risk project? The ERC Advanced Grant could be for you.

Who can apply?

 Applicants for the ERC Advanced Grants – called Principal Investigators (PI) – are expected to be active researchers who have a track-record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years.

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Deadline for submission (two stages)

• September 19, 2023
• April 11, 2024

Total budget: €30M

Budget per project: 8-10 M€

Objectives:

– To develop solutions that promote a healthy lifestyle solutions for children and adolescents to have a long-term impact by using digital technologies.

– Develop and integrate innovative, privacy preserving tools and technologies, such as (but not limited to) activity trackers, sensors, serious games, platforms and robotics, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in coordinated and integrated care models, to help children and adolescents lead healthy, active and social lifestyles, prevent diseases, as well as to better monitor and manage their physical, social and mental health.
– Involve SMEs, national and regional authorities, patient associations and all relevant stakeholders to improve the adoption of solutions in health systems
– Involve relevant “Human and Social Sciences” expertise in the design and conduct of the
of the project

Deadline for submission (two stages)

-September 19, 2023

-April 11, 2024

Total budget: €50M

Budget per project: 8- 12 M€

Objective

->To develop personalized strategies for prevention of non-communicable diseases (use of computational approaches, algorithms machine learning AI)

– Enable understanding of areas of unmet need in the prevention of non-communicable diseases, opportunity to mechanisms, management of disease progression and relapse. disease progression and relapse.
– Design new or improved and ambitious policy and intervention options
-Designing holistic approaches that include several of the following aspects: genetic predisposition
genetic predisposition, metagenomics, epigenomics, microbiome, metabolomics, sleep disorders, large cohorts, molecular profiling, impact of lack of activity, new predictive biomarker candidates,
nutrition and diet

Budget: EUR 50.00 million.

Deadline for submission (single stage): September 19,2023

The co-funded European Partnership on rare diseases should be implemented based on the priorities identified in the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda and through a joint program of activities ranging from coordinating and funding transnational research to highly integrative and community-driven ‘in-house’ activities such as innovation strategies for the efficient exploitation of research results, EU clinical trial preparedness activities, optimization of research infrastructures and resources, including networking, training and dissemination activities. It should be structured along the following main objectives:

-Launch joint transnational calls for RD research and innovation priorities as defined in the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, resulting in financial support to third parties, based on the annual work plans;

– Develop a European Clinical Research Network to accelerate the clinical trial readiness of the RD research community in Europe, to improve the research and innovation potential of RD stakeholders and facilitate the cost-effective clinical development of new therapies;

– Develop and consolidate the capacity building of the RD data ecosystem by supporting the federated access/sharing of FAIR research data, information resources to ensure the effective and fast translation of the research results to safe and effective health innovations;

– Integrate basic, pre-clinical and clinical research to reduce the burden for people living with a rare disease.

– Support research in relevant medical fields and intervention areas (prevention, diagnosis, treatment), while improving the utilization of existing health technologies in clinical practice;

– Support the scientific work of the International Rare Disease Research Consortium.

Deadline for submission (two stages)

-September 19, 2023

-April 11, 2024

Total budget: €45M

Budget per project: 6- 7 M€

Scope: Effective, affordable and accessible healthcare for diverse population groups is challenging and complex. For example, specific needs underlie the delivery of effective preventive actions and therapeutic treatments to a rapidly growing elderly population, often presenting comorbidities and associated poly-pharmacy. The pediatric population, including children born preterm, has also its specific needs in specially adjusted therapeutics and early

Proposals should address most of the following:

-Compare the use of currently existing (pharmacological, non-pharmacological and technological) healthcare interventions in specific population groups (or selected subgroups). While there is no restriction on diseases or conditions, preference will be given to proposals focusing on interventions with high public health relevance.

-Ensure acceptability and sustainability of the healthcare intervention through early involvement of ‘end users’ (e.g. patients, care providers) in the design of the study (integrating patient valued outcomes) and, where possible, in the research process including implementation. Additionally, proposals should take into account the diversity of health systems in different regions of Europe to allow large-scale uptake.

-Consider involving HTA bodies in order to create synergies and accelerate the practical implementation of the results.

-Consider issues of particular relevance for the target populations, for example, multimorbidity, complex chronic conditions, poly-pharmacy, substance misuse, vaccine efficacy, compliance, age, gender specificities and diseases with high societal burden (including but not limited to e.g. musculoskeletal diseases and mental health disorders).

– For the chosen population, assess clinical and safety parameters, as well as health and socio-economic outcomes (e.g. quality of life, patient mortality, (co)morbidity, costs, and performance of the health system). Agreed core outcome sets (COS) should be used as endpoints in conditions where they already exist, in other cases, efforts should be made to agree on such COS. Consider using new instruments and methods for determining the burden of disease and for evaluating the effects of the interventions. Low cost innovations should also be considered.

Join us for the second edition of the EIC Summit which will take place on 7-8 December 2022 in Brussels. Do not miss the key European deep-tech innovation event of the year, bringing together start-ups, researchers, investors, policy makers and corporates.

What’s in it for you?

• Meet other participants and network
• Discuss European innovation policy developments & challenges
• Learn practical tips & tricks by attending workshops on Day 2
• Visit our exhibition and talk to EIC beneficiaries and partnering organisations

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The world’s largest brain research prize is Danish and is awarded by the Lundbeck Foundation. Each year, we award 10 million DKK (approx. 1,3 million€) to one or more brain researchers who have had a ground-breaking impact on brain research.

Nominations for 2023 are open

The Brain Prize recognises highly original and influential advances in any area of brain research, from basic neuroscience to applied clinical research, and winners may be of any nationality and work in any country around the globe. This broad perspective is reflected in the diverse fields of previous Brain Prize winners.

The Prize may be awarded to one or more scientists who have distinguished themselves through outstanding contributions to any field of neuroscience, from fundamental studies to research related to understanding and treatment of diseases of the brain and other parts of the nervous system.

HOW TO NOMINATE?

Deadline for submission (two stages)

-September 19, 2023

-April 11, 2024

Total budget: €25M

Budget per project: 6- 7 M€

A number of medical conditions fail to be recognised and/or be correctly diagnosed in a significant proportion of patients. As a consequence they are inadequately treated and often can become a chronic burden for the patient. These medical conditions may be insufficiently researched even though they manifest with high prevalence166, 167. This topic excludes rare diseases.

Proposals should address all of the following aspects:

-Proposals should address the gaps in robust, scientific evidence for improved policies and practices to tackle such medical condition(s), and aim at identifying the pathophysiological mechanism(s) (e.g. genetic, cellular and molecular) and potential risk factors (e.g. psychological and environmental) of the medical condition(s) through basic, pre-clinical and/or clinical research. These efforts should underpin the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and/or preventive strategies for the condition.

– Proposals should demonstrate that the medical condition(s) under study is/are insufficiently understood, inaccurately diagnosed or inadequately treated in a significant proportion of patients, and as such represent a high burden for patients and society. This could be through referencing key literature.

-Sex and gender aspects, age, ethnicity, socio-economic, lifestyle and behavioural factors should be taken into consideration. In addition, the emotional and societal long-term effects of these chronic disorders for the affected individuals should be addressed.

– Where applicable, the development of biomarkers and other technologies for diagnosis, monitoring in patients, and stratification of patient groups should be considered.

– Where applicable, the development of clinically relevant, (non-)human model systems that can complement clinical investigations should be considered.

– Exploitation of existing data, biobanks, registries and cohorts is expected, together with the generation of new (e.g. genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics) data.

The Global Innovation Fund (GIF) is currently inviting applications for its Grants program to support breakthrough solutions from for-profit firms, non-profit organisations, researchers, and government agencies to maximise their impact and catalyse meaningful change.

Deadline – Ongoing

The Global Innovation Fund invests in the development, rigorous testing, and scaling up of new products, services, business process, or policy reforms. Through its grants, GIF supports these breakthrough solutions from for-profit firms, non-profit organisations, researchers, and government agencies to maximise their impact and catalyse meaningful change.

If you are a non-profit and your innovation does not involve generating revenues from users or customers, a grant is likely to be most appropriate.

Stages of Funding

GIF has a staged funding approach, whereby the amount of funding available is tiered according to the level of maturity of your innovation and the activities proposed. The three tiers are:

Pilot – the innovation is at an early stage but you have a credible plan for how it can be developed and tested in a real-world setting. Funding of up to USD 230,000 is available to test core assumptions around operational, social, and financial viability.

Test and transition – the innovation has already shown promise of success at a small scale, and you have some information on your operational, social, and financial viability which you want to solidify before you scale. Funding of up to USD 2.3 million is available to support further growth and generate additional evidence on whether the innovation can achieve social impact and market viability, for commercial innovations.

Scale – the innovation has a strong evidence base and logistically credible plan for scaling to reach millions of people. Funding of up to USD 15 million is available to expand the reach of innovations with a view to reaching millions of people in the long term if successful.

What they Fund?

At GIF, they believe that innovation, by which they mean any solution that has potential to address an important development problem more effectively than existing approaches, can come from anyone, anywhere.

This means that they accept applications working in any sector in any developing country.

Any type of organisation may apply. This includes social enterprises, for-profit companies, non-profit organisations, government agencies, international organisations, and research institutions in any country. It is recommended that individual innovators, entrepreneurs, or researchers apply through an affiliated organisation.

Eligibility Criteria

Any type of organisation may apply. This includes social enterprises, for-profit companies, non-profit organisations, government agencies, international organisations, and research institutions in any country. It is recommended that individual innovators, entrepreneurs or researchers apply through an affiliated organisation.

Ineligible

GIF is open to innovations which meet their criteria in any sector or country. However, there are some activities they do not fund. These include:

• Theoretical research, or purely lab-based activities that are not linked to implementation of a specific proposed real-world pilot or demonstration project.
• Approaches that are only applicable in a single country (unless the innovation is expected to scale to a large proportion of one of the world’s most populous developing countries).

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A cost action  is an interdisciplinary research network that brings researchers and innovators together to investigate a topic of their choice for 4 years.  COST Actions are typically made up of researchers from academia, SMEs, public institutions and other relevant organisations or interested parties.

Open to all science and technology fields, including new and emerging fields; COST Actions offer an inclusive, pan-European environment for individuals of all levels of seniority to grow their professional research networks and boost their careers.

In today’s world it is essential for research to be interconnected, interdisciplinary, collaborative and data-intensive. By focusing on networking activities, COST Actions help to advance knowledge and strengthen the research and development sector, by creating networking opportunities for researchers to meet and discuss ideas, complex problems can be addressed in a targeted way, across a large geographical area.

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Budget committed for projects funding : Projects are multinational but funding is national (contract is signed by national funding bodies) – more precision will be added

Deadlines: Two stages : 15th February 2023and 14th June 2023

Link: https://www.ejprarediseases.org/joint-transnational-call-2023/

Research proposals should cover at least one of the following areas:

• Estimation of disease prevalence;
• Identification of biomarkers/companions for the diagnosis/prognosis of a RD;
• Identification of biomarkers/indicators/predictors of a rare disease or group of disorders (e.g. having the same aetiology) onset/progression (including collection of genetic, physiological, environmental data or variables….);
• Identification of relevant endpoints for future studies that include potential biomarkers, querying patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and quality-of-life measures to identify the most;
• Identification of biomarkers/variables for therapeutic approaches (pharmacology, drug repurposing, gene therapy, RNA therapy, cell therapy, medical devices…).

It is possible to use cellular and animal models for validation of the new diagnostic approaches in the subtopics listed above where relevant.

Furthermore, additional elements need to be considered in the application:

• Inclusion of patient and caregiver perspectives from the RD community is strongly encouraged. Patients living with a RD or a family member who cares for them, have experiences and knowledge that can contribute to generating data about the natural progression of the disease. Patients should be involved in all steps of planning and implementation of the study;
• For the small group of well-characterized rare diseases with approved treatments or improved standard of care, prospective studies can define the altered disease progression under the current medical setting. Thereby, studies collecting data regarding adverse events and providing reference/data for development of a more effective or safer treatment can be considered for complementing the natural history study.