Preliminary announcement: a Franco-German call for projects on antimicrobial resistance
The call will enable French and German scientists to build an effective collaboration on a common research project within the field of antimicrobial resistance in human infections, implicating multiple research domains.
France and Germany, in a joint effort to strengthen Europe’s preparedness for this century’s big challenges and to further develop the European Research Area (ERA), reached an agreement on an important international objective this summer: the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) on a global scale. Both countries have considerable expertise and resources to contribute to the fight against AMR through the formation of productive bilateral research collaborations. Hence, MESRI and BMBF have each committed up to 7 million euros for a new bilateral program on research and development for AMR, meant to address unmet needs within the AMR field.
In this first call, French and German scientists are invited to set up productive research collaborations, whose outcomes could be implemented into current French and German public health policies or products tackling AMR.
Aims of the call
The following priority topics were identified by a Franco-German expert committee:
Resistance to antibiotics (limited to critically resistant bacteria from the “priority 1: critical” list of priority pathogens, as published by the WHO)
- Microbiota-based prevention and treatment strategies
- Antibacterials with new modes of action differing from modes of action of existing antibiotics, e.g., small molecules, peptides/proteins, DNA/RNA based products, natural products, bacteriophages and bacteriophage-derived products
- Investigations of the emergence, dissemination and burden of resistance using epidemiology, modelling, microbiology and cell biology
Resistance to antifungals
- Pathogenic mechanisms, investigational diagnostics and treatment strategies in relation to resistance issues
Consortium composition
Only bilateral consortia will be funded. The following conditions apply to the composition of consortia:
- There must be one French coordinator and one German coordinator; both must be eligible to receive funding from the respective funding agency, ANR or BMBF
- Additional members, eligible to receive funding from either agency, can join the consortium as research partners
Estimated schedule
There will be a one-stage submission procedure with a rebuttal phase. Proposals and rebuttal feedback must be written in English and must be submitted to ANR by one of the two coordinators through an electronic submission system available on the ANR website. No other means of submission will be accepted.
The call is scheduled to open in the third week of December 2018.
The content of the call described in this is pre-announcement is indicative, may be subjected to changes and is not legally binding to the respective ministries or funding agencies.
