6th E-Rare Joint Transnational Call (JTC 2014) for European Research Projects on Rare Diseases, in the context of the ERA-NET E-Rare-2

The ANR joins the ERA-NET E-Rare-2 to launch a sixth call for proposals to fund transnational research projects on rare diseases. Sixteen countries from the European Research Area and abroad are joining this call: Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey.

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. The research projects have to focus on the pre-clinical development of therapeutic approaches in suitable existing animal or cell model. Research proposals shall concern one or more rare diseases following the European definition (i.e. a disease affecting not more than five in 10.000 persons in the European Community). Rare infectious diseases, rare cancers and rare adverse drug events in treatments of common diseases are excluded from the scope of this call.

The impact of the expected results on patients affected by rare diseases must be clearly stated. The transnational project should be based on complementarities and sharing of expertise, demonstrating a clear added value of the cooperation: gathering a critical mass of patients/biological material that would not be possible on a national level, sharing of resources (models, databases, diagnosis etc.), harmonization of data, sharing of specific know-how and/or innovative technologies, etc.

Each submitted proposal must involve a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 6 research groups from at least 3 different countries participating to this call (see list above).

Funding is granted for a maximum of three years.