Preannouncement: A call for Transnational Research Proposals on “Biomarkers for Nutrition and Health”
The Joint Programming Initiative “A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life” (JPI HDHL) has been established to coordinate research in the areas of food, diet, physical activity and health in order to achieve tangible societal and health impact and to strengthen European leadership and competitiveness in this field.
Using the ERA-NET Cofund instrument (named ERA-HDHL) the JPI HDHL aims to provide a robust platform for implementing Joint Funding Actions (JFA) that addresses the research challenges that are identified and described in its Strategic Research Agenda and to create a transnational network of researchers.
This cofunded call is the first implemented joint funding action in the frame of ERA-HDHL. It is a joint transnational call, co-funded with the European Commission (EC), for the “Development and validation of biomarkers for nutrition and health, including nutritional intake, nutritional status, physical activity-related health, diet-related health and risk of developing diet-related diseases”.
Aims of the call
This call focuses on the identification and validation of biomarkers that are modulated by diet and that indicate a change in health status and/or the risk of developing diet-related diseases. Biomarkers of physical activity may be considered alongside diet.
The proposals have to fulfill the following conditions:
- Proposals should focus on biomarkers that are modifiable by diet (or a combination of diet and physical activity) and reflect a healthy state, or focus on its transition towards diet- and lifestyle-related disease. Studies focusing on disease biomarkers are outside the scope of the call.
- Proposals can aim to identify new biomarkers, or build upon previous identification studies through necessary validation.
- Proposals which focus on identification of new biomarkers should demonstrate the relevance of the biomarker to human health and should carefully consider approaches for validation.
- Proposals should 1) make use of existing biobanks and/or cohorts or 2) explain why no existing biobank or cohort is used.
- Proposals should explain how the data gathered through their project would be available to the wider research community.
- Proposals should avoid overlap with the aims and objectives of FOODBALL and Mirdiet. These projects are already funded under the umbrella of JPI HDHL.
General conditions for application
In general, joint research proposals may be submitted by applicants working in universities (or other higher education institutions), non-university public research institutes, hospitals and other health care settings. Participation of private parties is encouraged as well as commercial companies, in particular small and medium-size enterprises. However, the eligibility of these organisations and institutions are subject to the national/regional regulations of the individual funding organisations and may therefore vary.
Only transnational projects will be funded: each consortium must involve a minimum of three partners eligible from the participating funding organisations and a maximum of six partners eligible from the participating funding organisations from at least three different countries. No more than two eligible partners from the same country will be accepted in one consortium.
Submission and evaluation of projects will be carried out in two stages and integrated with other countries. Each country shall fund its national teams according to its own procedures.
The following funding organisations intend to participate in this cofounded call: BMWFW (Austria), SPW-DGO6 (Belgium), CIHR (Canada), IFD (Danemark), ANR (France), BMBF et BMEL/BLE (Germany), SFI (Ireland), MIUR et MiPAAF (Italy), ZonMw (The Netherlands), NCBR (Poland), ANCSI (Romania), ICSIII and MINECO (Spain), Tubitak (Turkey), and BBSRC (United Kingdom).
Submissions of proposals will be carried out in two steps. Pre-proposals must be submitted by the 19th of April 2016. Only successful consortia at the pre-proposal stage will be invited to submit a full proposal before the 15th of July 2016.
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