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9th JOINT CALL FOR EUROPEAN RESEARCH PROJECTS ON RARE DISEASES (JTC 2017)
Deadline: Feb 1, 2017  
CALL EXPIRED

 Health Care
 International Cooperation
 E-Health
 Research

The ERA-NET “E-Rare” for research programmes on rare diseases has been extended to a third phase “E-Rare-3” (2014-2019) to further help in coordinating the research efforts of European, Associated and non-European countries in the field of rare diseases and implement the objectives of International Rare Disease Research Consortium (IRDiRC). 

The following parties,

•    Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Austria
•    Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Belgium, Flanders
•    Fund for Scientific Research - FNRS (F.R.S.-FNRS), Belgium, French-speaking community
•    Canadian Institutes of Health Research – Institute of Genetics (CIHR-IG), Canada
•    Fonds de recherche du Québec-Santé (FRQS), Québec (Canada)
•    Academy of Finland (AKA), Finland
•    French National Research Agency (ANR), France
•    Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Germany
•    German Research Foundation (DFG), Germany
•    General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT), Greece
•    National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH) of Hungary
•    Chief Scientist Office of the Ministry of Health (CSO-MOH), Israel
•    National Technological Innovation Authority (the "Innovation Authority), Israel
•    Italian Ministry of Health (MoH-IT), Italy
•    Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation, Japan
•    State Education Development Agency (VIAA), Latvia
•    National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR), Poland
•    Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI), Romania
•    National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII), Spain
•    Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Switzerland
•    The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK), Turkey

have decided to open the ninth E-Rare joint transnational call (JTC 2017) for funding multilateral research projects on rare diseases. The call is being opened simultaneously by the parties in their respective countries. In addition, Patient Organisations (PO) - represented in this call mostly by EURORDIS - may also co-fund selected projects based on their mandate and research topic interest.


1.    AIM OF THE CALL

The aim of the call is to enable scientists in different countries to build an effective collaboration on a common interdisciplinary research project based on complementarities and sharing of expertise, with a clear translational research approach.

Topics: The research projects have to focus on the pre-clinical development of therapeutic approaches in suitable existing animal or cell models. 
Therapeutic approaches can include:

a.    Cell-based therapy (e.g. somatic cell therapy, cell-based regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, therapies based on combination of cells with scaffolds or substrates, etc.)
b.    Gene therapy (e.g. transfer of nucleic acids for therapeutic purposes including DNA, RNA, oligonucleotides, etc.)
c.    Pharmacological therapy (e.g. use of chemicals or biopharmaceuticals including repurposing approaches, high throughput screening of molecules, etc.)

The following approaches and topics are excluded from the scope of the call:

a.    Therapeutic approaches concerning rare infectious diseases, rare cancers and rare adverse drug events in treatments of common diseases
b.    Interventional clinical trials or any project enrolling patients
c.    Development of new cell or animal models. The relevant cell or animal model must be already established for the purpose of the project
d.    Surgery or radiation therapies

Projects shall involve a group of rare diseases or a single rare disease following the European definition i.e. a disease affecting not more than five in 10.000 persons in the European Community, EC associated states and Canada. 

The research projects submitted within this call must be based on novel ideas stemming from consolidated previous results and must be clearly endowed with a strong translational research orientation, i.e. bench to bed studies allowing a rapid implementation into public health-related decisions or into the clinics. In order to achieve this goal, the necessary expertise and resources should be brought together from academia, clinical/public health sector and private companies. The research teams within a consortium should include investigators from all scientific disciplines, research areas and expertise necessary to achieve the proposed objectives.

The research proposals must demonstrate complementary and synergistic interaction among the partner teams. There should be clear added value in the transnational collaboration over the individual projects, in term of:

i)    Gathering a critical mass of subjects/patients and or subjects/patients databases and corresponding biological materials that would not be possible at a national scale; 
ii)    Sharing of resources (biobanks, models, databases, diagnostic tools, etc.) of specific know-how and/or innovative technologies, and of expertise. The projects should address the issues of potential efficacy of the proposed interventions and also clearly demonstrate the potential health impact.

The use of existing European health research infrastructures is strongly encouraged when appropriate, e.g. research infrastructures established as an European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) or identified on the roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). Projects are invited to identify the existing European research data infrastructures that may be used and how these may be mobilised, in particular for long-term data curation and preservation (in accordance with EU and IRDiRC recommendations, www.irdirc.org).

The following ESFRI European Research Infrastructures were identified as potentially useful for this kind of study:
-    Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure (BBMRI) - http://bbmri-eric.eu/about 
-    European Advanced Translational Infrastructure in Medicine (EATRIS) - http://www.eatris.eu/ 
-    The European Clinical Research Infrastructures Network (ECRIN) - http://www.ecrin.org/ 
-    The European Life Sciences Infrastructure for Biological Information (ELIXIR) - http://www.elixir-europe.org/ 
-    European Infrastructure of Open Screening Platform for Chemical Biology (EU-OPENSCREEN) - http://www.eu-openscreen.eu/ 
-    European Infrastructure for Phenotyping, Archiving and Distribution of Mouse Models (INFRAFRONTIER) - https://www.infrafrontier.eu/ 

The aim of the call is in compliance with the goals set by the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) which fosters international collaboration in rare diseases research. For more information see IRDiRC website: http://www.irdirc.org/

2.    GENERAL CONDITIONS FOR APPLICATION

Joint research proposals may be submitted by applicants belonging to one of the following categories (according to country/regional regulations):
•    academia (research teams working in universities, other higher education institutions or research institutes)
•    clinical/public health sector (research teams working in hospitals/public health and/or other health care settings and health organisations)
•    enterprise (all sizes of private companies). Participation of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) is encouraged when allowed by national/regional regulations

Please note that the inclusion of a non-eligible partner in a proposal leads to the rejection of the entire proposal without further review. Whilst applications will be submitted jointly by research partners from several countries, individual groups will be funded by the individual funding organisation of their country/region that is participating in the E-Rare-3 JTC 2017. The applications are therefore subjected to eligibility criteria of individual funding organisations. Applicants must contact their corresponding national/regional representative and confirm eligibility with their respective funding organisations in advance of submitting an application (see national/regional contact details and Annex). The adherence to the national/regional regulations in the “Guidelines for applicants” document is mandatory. 

Only transnational projects will be funded. Each consortium submitting a proposal must involve a minimum of three eligible and a maximum of six eligible partners from at least three different countries participating to the call (see list above). No more than two eligible partners from the same country participating in the call will be accepted in one consortium.
In order to recruit the necessary patients, data and/or samples for the proposed study, a consortium may need to collaborate with other centers. If this is the unique role of those centers, they will not be considered as partners of the consortium.

The Joint Call Secretariat and national/regional funding organisations will perform cross-checks in parallel submissions to other joint transnational calls (e.g. NEURON, JPND, EuroNanoMed, ERACo-SysMed and others) and national calls. Applicants shall avoid applying for same research activities to different calls. Double funding is not allowed.

Applicants are encouraged to include partners from the participating underrepresented countries (Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Turkey). If they include such partners, the maximum number of partners can be increased to seven or eight (see table below). 

Additional partners that secure their own funding may join consortia. However, their number is limited to two. They must state clearly in the proposal if these funds are already secured or if not, how they plan to obtain funding in advance of the project start. It will be required to document the availability of their funds before October 1, 2017.
The consortium coordinator must always be eligible to receive funding from the funding organisations participating in the call. 
Only groups that contribute substantially to at least one of the work packages are considered as partners and should be indicated in the project

 

Number of partners requesting funding: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (only possible with inclusion of 1 Eastern European partner), 8 (only possible with inclusion of 2 Eastern European partners)

 

Possible number of additional partners with own funding 2  for 3, 4, 5, 6  of partners requesting funding

Possible number of additional partners with own funding 1  for 7  partners requesting funding

Possible number of additional partners with own funding 0 for 8  partners requesting funding

 

 


The duration of the projects can be up to 3 years. Nevertheless, a partner can receive funding for less than 3 years according to E-Rare-3 JTC 2017 funding organisations eligibility criteria and regulations.

3.    TIMETABLE

There will be a two-stage submission procedure for joint applications: pre-proposals and full proposals.

To submit your proposal please register, complete the necessary information and upload your proposal: https://secure.pt-dlr.de/ptoutline/app/users/login/ERARE17
The call is scheduled to open on: December 5, 2016
•    Deadline for submitting the pre-proposals: February 1, 2017
•    Communication of selection of pre-proposals: End of April, 2017
•    Indicative deadline for submitting the full proposals: June 2, 2017

5.    PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES DETAILS

Austria
Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
Budget Mio €: 0.6
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 2

Belgium
Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)
Budget Mio €: 0.2
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 1

Fund for Scientific Research - FNRS (F.R.S.-FNRS)
Budget Mio €: 0.2
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 1

Canada
Canadian Institutes of Health Research Institute of Genetics(CIHR-IG) 
Budget Mio €: 0.5
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded:3-4

Fonds de recherche du Québec-Santé (FRQS)
Budget Mio €: 0.36
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 1-2

Finland
Academy of Finland (AKA)
Budget Mio €: 0.6
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 2

France
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR)
Budget Mio €: 1.5
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded:6

Germany
German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
Budget Mio €: 3
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 12-15

German Research Foundation (DFG)
Budget Mio €: 2.3
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 10-12

Greece
General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT)
Budget Mio €: 0.5
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 5

Hungary
National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH)
Budget Mio €: 0.15
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 1-2

Israel
Chief Scientist Office of the Ministry of Health (CSO/MOH)
Budget Mio €: 0.24
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 2

National Technological Innovation Authority (the "Innovation Authority)
Budget Mio €:0.5
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded:tbd

Italy
Ministry of Health (MoH)
Budget Mio €: 1
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 4-6

Japan
Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation
Budget Mio €: 0.12
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 1

Latvia
State Education Development Agency (VIAA)
Budget Mio €: 0.21
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 1

Poland
National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR)
Budget Mio €: 0.4
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 1-3

Romania
Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development & Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI)
Budget Mio €: 0.5

Spain
National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII)
Budget Mio €: 0.25
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 2-3

Switzerland
Swiss National Science Foundation  (SNSF)
Budget Mio €: 0.9

Turkey
Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK)
Budget Mio €: 1
Approximative number of research groups that can be funded: 3-4

For questions regarding the joint call please contact the
Joint Call Secretariat:
mdruet@isciii.es
Ms Maria Druet [(+34) 91 822 2530]

For questions regarding national eligibility criteria and requirements please contact the national contact person in your country (the list is available via the left-side menu)

 

 



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