Joint transnational call 2022 for proposals on Personalised Medicine through the ERA-NET: ERA PerMed

The French National Research Agency, in partnership with 33 funding organisations of 26 countries launches the fifth joint transnational call for proposals on “Prevention in Personalised Medicine” through the ERA-NET ERA PerMed. The available budget for this call is 29 Mio€ (approx.).

The overall objectives of the ERA PerMed call are to:

• (i)    support translational research projects in the field of Personalised Medicine;
• (ii)    encourage and enable interdisciplinary collaborations towards implementation of PM, in combining pre-clinical or clinical research with bio-informatics components as well as ELSA research or implementation research, including health economics;
• (iii)    encourage collaboration between academia (research teams from universities, higher education institutions, public research institutions, research centres), clinical/public health research (research teams from hospital/ public health, healthcare settings and other healthcare organisations), private partners e.g. SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) as well as policy makers, regulatory/HTA agencies and patient organisations.

The following countries (26) are participating in the preparation of the call: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania*, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and Turkey.

Besides national funders, the following regions are participating (7): Wallonia-Brussels (Belgium), Quebec (Canada), Federation Saxony (Germany), Lombardy (Italy), Tuscany (Italy), Catalonia (Spain) and Navarre (Spain) and one Charity (AECC-FC).

* The decision on participation is still pending for a funding organisation of this country.

Scope of the Call:

Proposals must be interdisciplinary and clearly demonstrate the potential impact on PM as well as the added value of transnational collaboration.

The JTC2022 is constructed around the following three research areas in order to ensure the development of specific PM approaches considering the major aspects needed for their successful implementation in the health systems:

(1) “Translating Basic to Clinical Research and Beyond”,
(2) “Data and Information and Communication Technology (ICT)”,
(3) “Responsible and Effective Implementation in Healthcare”.

Each proposal MUST address at least one module out of each research area:

Assessment of the coherent integration and combination of the different research areas and modules in the proposals is part of the evaluation process.

Consortium composition

Joint research proposals may be submitted by applicants belonging to one of the following categories (A, B and/or C), if eligible according to relevant regional/national funding organisations’ regulations for research funding:

A.    Academia or research institutes;

B.    Clinical/public health sector;

C.    Private for-profit (industry) partners, e.g. SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) and private non-profit partners, e.g. foundations, associations or non-governmental organisations.

Only transnational projects will be funded. Each consortium submitting a proposal must involve at least three partners eligible for funding coming from three different countries whose funders participate in the call. All three legal entities must be independent of each other. At least two partners of the minimum three eligible project partners of the consortium must be from two different EU Member States or Associated Countries. The coordinator must be eligible to be funded by the participating funding organisations to this call. The maximum number of partners per project is six though not more than 2 eligible partners from the same country participating in the call will be accepted in one consortium (including those partners with own funding). At the full-proposal stage, a consortium might be increased up to seven partners in total only by inclusion of a partner coming from an underrepresented country. A list of underrepresented countries will be provided to coordinators invited for full-proposals submission.

Research groups not eligible for funding (e.g. from non-funding countries or not fundable according to regional/national regulations of the participating funding organisation) may participate in transnational projects if they are able to secure their own funding. They are considered as full partners and have to be integrated in the pre- and full-proposal templates as such. No more than one partner with own funding is allowed in consortia with at least 3 partners that are eligible for funding.

The project coordinator must be eligible to be funded by his/her regional/national participating funding organisation.

It is mandatory to integrate as principal investigator at least one early-career researcher in a consortium.

Exception: To facilitate the integration of patient organisations in consortia, they can be added to a consortium as additional partners at the pre-proposal stage or the full-proposal stage. The consortia must follow all of the above-mentioned rules regarding consortia composition without counting the patient organisations. The latter can be added as additional partners either through their own funding or by applying for funding, if eligible, from the respective funding organisations. Not more than two consortium partners per country can request funding, including patient organisations. An exception is possible in countries with more than one funding organisation: in these countries, three partners from the same country may apply for funding, if one of them is a patient organisation and at least one of them is requesting funding to a regional funding organisation.

Funding will be awarded for a maximum of three years. ANR will exclusively fund French partners of the selected projects.

Erratum du 02.05.2022: For French beneficiaries at “marginal” costs, the environmental costs increased from 12 to 13%. The maximum funding a French team can request was adapted to 313 000 € for a coordinating partner and 262 000 € for a simple partner. “Guidelines for Applicants” (page 35).