Dear researchers,

We are pleased to inform you that the second call of the ERA-Net “ERA PerMed” on Personalised Medicine is now opened (deadline: 7th March 2019; 17:00 CET).

Aim of the call:

ERA PerMed will foster research and innovation activities building close linkages between basic biomedical research, clinical research, bioinformatics, epidemiology, socio-economic research, as well as research on the integration of Personalised Medicine into clinical practice and on ethical, legal and social implications.

This implies a wide range of multidisciplinary activities brought together by different stakeholders from academia (e.g. universities and research institutions), clinics (e.g. clinical laboratories, medical professionals), industry (e.g. pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology companies, information technology companies including Health Information Technology – HIT), policy makers, regulatory/health technology assessment (HTA) agencies and patients/patient organisations.

The overarching goal is to improve disease management, with better patient stratification, diagnostics and treatment protocols, and disease prevention. Proposals submitted under this call are expected to demonstrate the applicability of project outcomes into clinical practice as well as to describe the impact on the health care systems. The clinical relevance of the suggested Personalised Medicine approach needs to be convincingly shown. Moreover, proposals are expected to include research on ethical, legal and socio-economic implications, including health economics and regulation, and/or research on optimisation of health care systems.

Proposals:

Each proposal MUST address at least one module of Research Area 3 and at least one module of Research Area 1 or 2 (more details on page 6-11; “ERA-PERMed 2019 Call text F.pdf”).

Research Area 1: “Translating Basic to Clinical Research and Beyond”:

Module 1A: Pre-clinical Research

Module 1B: Clinical Research

Research Area 2: “Integrating Big Data and ICT Solutions”:

Module 2A: Data and ICT (Enabling Technology)

Module 2B: Data and ICT (Towards application in health care)

Research Area 3: “Research towards Responsible Implementation in Health Care”:

Module 3A: Optimising Heatlh Care System

Module 3B: Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects

ERA PerMed can support exploratory clinical studies, including those with a smaller number of patients/volunteers that aim to demonstrate the feasibility of early diagnosis and/or stratification of, for example, patients for existing drugs.

The Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) funded differ between the funding organisations. Please check the regional/national regulations (“Guidelines for Applicants”).

Double submission of the same proposal on neurodegenerative diseases focusing on medical imaging in the light of PM within the cofunded JPND JTC2019 and the ERA PerMed JTC2019 is not eligible. Double submission of the same proposal within the cofunded EJP Rare Diseases JTC2019 and the ERA PerMed JTC2019 is not eligible.

Consortiums:

Each consortium submitting a proposal must involve at least three partners eligible for funding coming from three different countries whose funders participate in the call (see list in the ERA-PERMED 2019_Call_text_F.pdf document).

The project coordinator must be eligible to be funded by his/her regional/national participating funding organisation.

The maximum number of partners per project at the pre-proposal stage is six. At the full-proposal stage, the consortium can be increased up to seven partners in total only by inclusion of a partner coming from an underrepresented country.

Within one consortium, no more than two partners from the same country participating in the call will be accepted, including those partners with their own funding. For some funding agencies the maximum number of eligible partners that can be funded in one project is limited to one.

Partners not eligible for funding by one of the organisations participating in this JTC (e.g. from non-funding countries or not fundable according to the regional/national regulations of the participating funding organisations) may participate in projects if they are able to secure their own funding. No more than one partner with its own funding is allowed in consortia with at least 3 partners eligible for funding.

It is strongly encouraged that the consortia submitting applications to this call include partners coming from academia, clinical/public health sector and industry (Private partners)

ERA PerMed strongly encourages the active involvement of members of the public (patients, citizens/potential patients, carers, people who use health and social care services as well as patient organisations) in the proposed research projects.

The research teams within a consortium should include investigators from all scientific disciplines, research areas and expertise necessary to achieve the proposed objectives.

Active participation of early career researchers/scientists in project proposals is encouraged.

Elegibility criterias (Catalonia – Health Department – Generalitat de Catalunya (DS-CAT)):

1. Eligible entities:

- Foundations managing research activities of both SISCAT and

- Public health centres who carry out research activity in Catalonia, including accredited Health Research Institutes, CERCA institutions and Unique Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (ICTS).

2. Eligible costs:

- Personnel (only temporary contracts) – salaries based on PERIS

- Consumables

- Core facilities

- Subcontracts (max. 50%)

- Travel (max. 5.000€/year)

- No equipment is allowed

Budget by DS-CAT:

• Up to 200.000 € per partner (overheads included, max 20%)

• Up to 250.000 € per coordinator (overheads included, max 20%)

VHIR can also receive funding from:

ISCIII: Please check the specific eligibility criteria in the ERA-PerMed JTC2019_Guidelines-for-Applicants.pdf attached document

AECC-FC: Please check the specific eligibility criteria in the ERA-PerMed JTC2019_Guidelines-for-Applicants.pdf attached document

Application: A two-step submission and evaluation procedure for joint applications has been established: pre-proposals and full-proposals. In both phases, one joint proposal document shall be prepared by the partners of a joint transnational project proposal, and must be submitted to the JCS by the project coordinator by uploading it on the electronic submission system https://ptoutline.eu/app/erapermed2019

The proposals must be written in English, must respect the template form in terms of overall size and section pages and characters limits, and must strictly adhere to the “Guidelines for Applicants”. The pre-proposal template is attached in this email.

Duration: 3 years

Deadlines:

• Statement of interest: January 31st, 2019 by email https://ptoutline.eu/app/erapermed2019

Please, it is highly recommended to respect the deadline of Statement of Interest to ensure all steps of the submission procedure.

In case you need International partners, we kindly recommend you to contact us as soon as you have clearly identified the required partner profiles

• Internal deadline for proposal review (optional): 5th February

• Internal deadline for budget review: February, 12th February

• Internal deadline for applications: March 6th at 17:00 CET (24h before the official deadline).

*Please note that the Research Grants Office will not be responsible for those applications submitted less than 24h before the Official Deadline.

• Official deadline for pre- applications: March 7th, 2019 at 17:00 CET

• Full proposal invitations sent to project coordinators: May 2019

• Deadline for full proposals: June 17th, 2019 at 17:00 CEST

Further information: ERA PerMed JTC2019 webpage and attached documents (ERA PerMed JTC2019 Call Text_F.pdf, 4_ERA-PerMed_JTC2019_Guidelines-for-Applicants.pdf, and 6_ERA-PerMed_JTC2019_Pre-Proposal_form.doc).

We want to encourage you to participate and to contact us as soon as possible if you are interested in this call. We can help you in the preparation of the proposal, in tasks such as checking the eligibility criteria, searching for partners and budget elaboration.