Aim and description of the call: Through its fifth transnational call (non-cofunded by the EC), ERA PerMed aims to foster research on prevention in personalised medicine. Personalised prevention or targeted/tailored prevention considers both individual susceptibility to the risk of disease (e.g. depending on the genomic, environmental background or lifestyle) and its perceived value and benefit (cultural and social factors). Important components of prevention in personalised medicine also include the:
- integration of the patients and citizen’s needs, connected to autonomous decision-making, as a factor in the future up-take of preventive interventions by society, and
- education and reimbursement strategies to allow equal access
The overarching goal of this call is the development of tailor-made strategies for the prevention of disease and disease progression, at three different levels: i) preventive measures to decrease the rate of incidence (primary prevention), ii) early detection to increase the efficacy of a preventive therapy, even before symptoms develop (secondary prevention), and iii) interventions to prevent disease recurrence or to improve patient care and quality of life (tertiary prevention). Research on prevention from over-treatment or overmedicalisation in primary, secondary and tertiary personalised preventive approaches is optional and could be part of research proposals, if applicable.
ERA PerMed will only fund those parts of the proposed study that address the aims of the call. ERA PerMed supports exploratory clinical studies that assess the viability of a future study (e.g. clinical trial):
- Pilot studies in which the future definitive study, or parts of it, including the randomisation or non-randomisation of participants, is conducted on a smaller scale (piloted) to assess its feasibility. Pilot studies should resemble the main (future) study in terms of the relevant respects, including assessment of primary outcome.
- Feasibility studies that are not pilot studies, such as those in which the investigators attempt to answer a question as to whether some element of the future intervention is deemed feasible. In contrast to pilot studies, in this kind of study, no part of the future study is being conducted on a smaller scale. Feasibility studies that are not pilot studies serve to estimate important parameters that are needed to design the main study.
Proposals including an exploratory clinical study must, at the full-proposal stage, include the form for “Exploratory Clinical Studies”, duly completed and appended (template available on the ERA PerMed website). Investigators must demonstrate that the required number of patients/individuals can be enrolled in the set period for the clinical exploratory study. Clinical trials that include a larger number of patients, for example for the identification or development of novel drugs, are beyond the scope of the call.
Eligibility criteria:
Only transnational projects will be funded. Apart from the transnational component, the following eligibility criteria must be met:
- Each consortium submitting a proposal must involve at least three partners eligible for funding from three different countries whose funders participate in the call (see list above). All three legal entities must be independent of each other.
- At least two partners out of a minimum of three eligible project partners in the consortium must be from two different EU Member States or Associated Countries.
- 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 may be expanded to up to seven partners in total only by including one partner from an underrepresented country. A list of underrepresented countries will be provided to coordinators invited to submit full proposals.
- 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 who can be funded in one project is limited to one (see also “Guidelines for Applicants” for individual funding rules).
- 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 provided that they demonstrate, with the full-proposal submission, that their economic and human resources have already been secured and will be available at the start of the project. No more than one partner with own funding is allowed in the consortia with at least three partners eligible for funding.
- It is mandatory to integrate at least one early-career researcher (ECR) as principal investigator in a consortium. For the ERA PerMeds definition of ECR, please consult
Joint research proposals may be submitted by applicants belonging to the following categories:
- Academia or research institutes,
- Clinical/public health sector
- Private for-profit (industry partners) e.g. SMEs and private non-for-profit partners, e.g. foundations, associations or non-governmental organisations
Financial aspect: Value of the Slovenian part of the call (for all Slovenian partners in one consortium) for an individual international project is 210.000 EUR for the duration of the project (cca. 70.000 EUR per year).
Application deadlines: Deadline for pre-proposal submission is 17th of February 2022. The deadline for full proposal submission is 14th of June 2022. Communication of the funding decisions to the applicants is expected for October 2022.