Covid-19 Flash Call: first immediate funding for the launch of 44 urgent projects
By the closing date of the Covid-19 Flash call, 23 March 2020, 270 eligible projects had been received.
Faced with these exceptional circumstances, which are strongly mobilising scientific communities, ANR is enabling 44 projects to be launched from 26 March 2020. The scientific panel has based its choice on two criteria:
- The relevance of the project's goals to the four themes of the call
- The urgency for the health crisis of the scientific question posed, the data and information collected, the samples taken, the protocols etc.
Complementing the actions taken by the REACTing network (REsearch and ACTion targeting emerging infectious diseases) coordinated by Inserm and its partners in the Aviesan alliance, ANR announced the Covid-19 Flash call on 26 February with the launch on 6 March 2020. It aims to mobilise scientific communities and address the priorities identified by the WHO around four themes defined jointly with the REACTing consortium and the Ministry.
Breakdown of the selected projects
Most of the selected projects respond to problems that involve several of the call's themes. As a guide, here is a breakdown of the main themes addressed by the projects:
- Theme 1, epidemiological and translational studies: 11 projects
- Theme 2, physiopathogenesis of the illness (virus-host interactions and immune response): 15 projects
- Theme 3, infection prevention and control measures in healthcare settings (including the best ways to protect healthcare staff) and in communities: 12 projects
- Theme 4, ethics – approaches to the response from the humanities and social sciences: 6 projects
Across all the themes, many projects are interdisciplinary in nature, often including a humanities and social sciences aspect or a digital and IT element.
Review process until 9 April 2020
The review process for the Flash call runs until 9 April. The total budget allocated and number of projects selected will be defined at the end of this phase, with funding released in the following days. The budget will adapt to the needs of the scientific teams chosen.
Flash: an accelerated process to support urgent research needs
One of ANR's specific funding instruments, the Flash call is based on an accelerated mechanism for funding research that requires rare information and data to be acquired, enabling the production of new scientific results associated with an event of exceptional scale and rarity. Project selection and funding take place on a short time scale, without compromising the principles of peer review.
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