Research & Innovation

European research projects for Cnalysis of Pathways related to Neurodegenerative Diseases

The aim of the JPND Cross-Disease Analysis of Pathways related to Neurodegenerative Diseases call is to establish a limited number of ambitious, innovative, multi-national and multi-disciplinary collaborative research projects that:

combine experimental approaches from fundamental, pre-clinical and/or clinical with computational approaches
perform network analyses in different neurodegenerative and other chronic diseases to elucidate the underlying mechanisms common and differing in the investigated diseases
will add value to existing research by analysing diseases across traditional clinical boundaries, thereby gaining deeper understanding of the patho-physiological mechanisms of the diseases.

The following neurodegenerative diseases are to be included in the call:

Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias
Parkinson’s disease and PD‐related disorders
Prion disease
Motor neuron diseases
Huntington’s disease
Spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA)
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).

Participating Countries

Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Turkey.
Funding

Approximately €12 m will be available in this call with the call adopting a virtual common pot i.e. each funding agency involved will support research to be carried out in its own country with limited funds crossing borders.
Eligibility

Joint transnational research proposals may be submitted by research groups working in universities (or other higher education institutions), non-university public research institutes, hospitals and other health care settings, as well as commercial companies, in particular small and medium-size enterprises.

Each proposal must involve a minimum of three and a maximum of six (3-6) research groups (principal investigators) applying for funding. Only transnational projects will be funded: each consortium must involve funded research groups from at least three different countries participating in this call. In addition to those funded research groups, external collaborators from countries that are not partners in this JPND joint transnational call or research groups from countries that are partners in this JPND joint transnational call but do not ask for funding may participate in projects.

Researchers from Ireland wishing to apply must first meet SFI’s eligibility requirements.
Application procedure

This will be a two-stage peer reviewed call.

Pre-proposals are to be submitted by the coordinator in electronic format no later than February 18, 2014 via the electronic submission system (https://www.pt-it.de/ptoutline/application/JPND_CD). A pre-proposal template is available at the JPND website (http://www.neurodegenerationresearch.eu/initiatives/annual-calls-for-proposals/open-calls/cross-disease-analysis-2013).

Full proposals will be accepted only from those applicants explicitly invited to submit one. Full proposals must be submitted by the coordinator in electronic format no later than June 23, 2014 via the electronic submission system (https://www.pt-it.de/ptoutline/application/JPND_CD).
Evaluation Criteria

The reviewers will carry out the evaluation according to the evaluation criteria below:

Relevance to the aim(s) of the call.
Scientific quality of the proposal including level of innovation and originality of the proposal along with novel methodology and feasibility of the project and related risk analysis (adequacy of project work plan, time schedule, availability of well characterised patient groups or samples, quality and linkages of data within and between countries, budgetary and other resources).
International competitiveness of participating research groups in the field(s) of the proposal (expertise relevant for the field, expertise of the research groups) and their appropriate mix; quality of collaborative interaction between the groups for the proposed work, level of training/knowledge exchange between research organisations, and added value, on both scientific and transnational levels, of the research consortium.
Deliverable outcomes in the short, medium and long term and likely impact – potential of the expected results for future clinical and other health relevant applications in the field of neurodegenerative diseases.

An international expert panel will rank the fundable proposals based on scientific assessment. The final ranking will also take into account the optimal portfolio spread that will provide most benefit i.e. funding may be restricted to only the best application where there are two or more proposals of similar scope and of similar high scientific quality. The call steering committee, made up of the funding organisations participating in the call, which decide on those projects to be funded subject to the constraints of the predetermined national budgets.

Should you have any queries, please email manus.ward@sfi.ie.