E-Rare-3: launching of an international call for proposals on rare diseases
A rare disease is any disease that affects a small percentage of the population. There are between 5,000 and 7,000 rare diseases in the world. Most of these diseases are genetic, are present throughout the person's entire life, and lack treatments and diagnostic tools. Although rare when considered individually, these diseases affect 30 thousand people in Europe, making it a real public-health issue. The fragmentation of resources and knowledge on these diseases, as well as the small number of people affected in each country, make it necessary the international cooperation and the multidisciplinary approaches.
Launched in 2006, the E-Rare programme aims at speeding up knowledge for the development of diagnostic and treatment tools for rare diseases, through multidisciplinary and transnational collaborations in Europe and beyond. Extended to a third phase under the ERA-NET Cofund scheme of the European Commission, E-Rare is now launching its seventh call for proposals.
Supporting collaborative and international research projects on rare diseases
The aim of this specific 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. 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.
The projects must cover at least one of the following areas:
- Collaborative research using patient databases and corresponding collections of biological material that would generally not be possible at a national scale. This research must have clear potential for clinical application;
- Research on rare diseases including genetic, epigenetic, and pathophysiological studies, using innovative and shared resources, technologies and expertise;
- Research on development of applications for diagnosis and therapies for rare diseases.
Project proposals must clearly demonstrate the potential health impact as well as the added value of transnational collaboration: gathering a critical mass of patients/biological material, sharing of resources (models, databases, diagnosis etc.), harmonization of data, sharing of specific know-how and/or innovative technologies, etc.
17 countries are participating in this call: Austria, Belgium, Canada (and Quebec), France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey.
Joint research proposals may be submitted by higher education institutions, non-university public research establishments, hospitals as well as commercial companies. Only transnational projects will be funded: each consortium must include between three and six teams from at least three different countries participating in the call (maximum of two teams per country). Applicants are encouraged to include partners from the participating Eastern European countries. If they include such partners, the maximum number of teams can be increased to eight.
Each agency will fund its own national teams; therefore the candidates will have to respect the eligibility rules of their respective agency. The ANR will fund the French teams only. The project evaluation and selection will be based on peer review. In a two-stage submission process, pre-proposals will be submitted before February 18, 2015. Only successful consortia at pre-proposal stage will be invited to submit a full proposal.
Find out more:
| E-Rare: ANR contributes to the global effort on rare diseases |
|---|
Research on rare diseases is not only scarce, but also scattered in different laboratories throughout Europe. This scarcity of the expertise translates into delayed diagnosis, few medicinal products and difficult access to care. At present, only a few European countries fund research on rare diseases through specific funding programmes dedicated to this field. That is why rare diseases are a prime example of a research area that strongly profits from coordination on a European and international scale. The ERA-NET on rare diseases, baptised "E-Rare", was launched in 2006. Designed as a tool to initiate and coordinate collaborative action between research funders, it aims at overcoming the fragmentation and compartmentalization of research in rare diseases in Europe and beyond. The major goal of E-Rare is the creation of a transnational rare diseases research funding programme. This is being achieved via launching of joint calls for transnational proposals, thorough assessment of the funding mechanisms and results of the funded research projects and, finally, strategic activities aiming at sustainable development and extension of the network. Six calls have been launched since 2007 on a wide range of possible topics and approaches related to rare diseases. 79 European projects have been co-funded for a total budget of €55 M, including 53 projects involving French teams funded by ANR. E-Rare is now entering its third phase of implementation, through a new instrument of the European Commission, the ERA-NET Cofund. This is the fifth ERA-NET coordinated by ANR: during five years, the agency will coordinate the network of 25 partners, also including three Canadian members. Through this new international dimension, E-Rare strengthens its collaboration with IRDiRC, the International consortium on rare diseases. |
