Joint Translational Call 2020 for Multinational Research on Sensory Disorders

The ANR launches in collaboration with the ERA-NET NEURON a joint call to support multinational, collaborative research projects addressing sensory disorders and their impact on the nervous system.

The present call is supported by 18 agencies located in the following countries:

Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey.

The focus of this call is on sensory disorders of neural origin, including all sensory modalities as well as proposals addressing synergies across modalities and/or multisensory dysfunction.

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

Fundamental research addressing the pathogenesis and etiology of sensory disorders. The development of innovative or shared resources or technologies is included as long as the relevance for the study of sensory system disorders is clearly described.

Clinical research to develop novel strategies of prevention, diagnosis, patient stratification, therapy and/or rehabilitation for sensory disorders.

Appropriate access to relevant, well-characterized patient populations or suitable biomaterial collections must be demonstrated. The establishment of large patient cohorts will not be funded by ERANET NEURON, but the use of existing cohorts and exploitation of existing data sets is encouraged.

Applicants should demonstrate that they have the expertise and range of skills required to conduct the study or that appropriate collaborations are in place. The development of new animal or cell models is excluded from the scope of the call unless it constitutes a marginal support of the main part of the proposal (i.e. as a strategy to strengthen the results or hypothesis in a project). If relevant, it is highly recommended to get in contact with appropriate European infrastructures early in the planning of the projects, in particular EATRIS-ERIC (focused on translational medicine), BBMRI-ERIC (focused on biobanking) and ELIXIR (focused on data sharing). Different platforms can be found via the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures in Europe - ESFRI (www.esfri.eu). 

The following research areas are excluded from this call:

• Chronic pain;
• Impairment of sensations or hallucinations caused by mental disorders and effects of neurological diseases (e.g. stroke);
• Eye movement disorders due to neurological diseases;
• Neurodegenerative disorders that are addressed by the EU Joint Programme - Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) - Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative dementias, Parkinson’s disease (PD) and PD-related disorders, Prion disease, Motor neuron diseases, Huntington’s disease, Spinocerebellar ataxia, Spinal muscular atrophy).   

The ERA-NET NEURON seeks to strengthen patient engagement in research. Applicants are expected to include patients, where appropriate, in their research process. Meaningful patient engagement can occur at the level of research planning, conducting research or research result dis- semination. Patient representatives will participate in the review of selected proposals and provide feedback on patient engagement aspects. All the applications should include a description of expected outcomes with potential relevance for the patients.

The proposals should be submitted by consortia composed by a minimum of three and a maximum of five research groups, from at least three different countries. The inclusion of consortium partners from the following underrepresented countries Latvia, Romania and Slovakia increases the maximum allowed number of partners to six. No more than two research groups should be from the same country. Only the French parties of each selected consortium will be funded by the ANR.

Selected projects can be funded for a duration up to three years. Funding is expected to start early 2021.