Deadline: 07-Oct-21
Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) is pleased to launch the 2021 Japan-Nordic Joint Call for Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP) with the Nordic partners; Academy of Finland, Research Council of Norway, Swedish Research Council, and NordForsk.
SICORP provides support for international joint research projects on the basis of equal partnership in countries, regions, and fields of cooperation that have been designated as particularly important by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) on the basis of intergovernmental agreements, in collaboration with funding agencies in the countries concerned.
The aim of this program is to contribute solutions to challenges facing world today and to bolster Japan’s scientific and technological capabilities through collaboration with a broad range of countries.
This program, with a view to disseminating excellent research results of the country to the world, expects to achieve synergies and develop mutually by collaborating with foreign countries and regions in science and technology that can be a source of the competitiveness.
The thematic framework includes fundamental, translational/basic clinical and epidemiological research on populations in the Nordic countries and Japan. Utilisation of existing high-quality health data sources in a Nordic-Japanese context is central to the research to be funded under this call.
- Health data being utilised in order to add value to, support or follow up already ongoing research at the Nordic and Japanese level.
- Data being used to follow up individuals with the aim of improving healthy longevity in terms of e.g. disease outcome, care, rehabilitation, side effects and quality of life.
- Determination of risk factors for severe medical complications (analysis of epidemiological, clinical, immunological, genetic markers) in the elderly population.
- Project size: 7.69 million yen per year for each project
- Research period: 3 years (FY2021-FY2024)
- Expected number of projects to be selected: 0-3 project(s)
- The research project must include partners from research-performing organisations in the three Nordic countries co-funding the call (Finland, Norway and Sweden) and from Japan. In addition, the research project can include other public sector partners. Private organisations, such as patient organisations and other undertakings, can participate in the project, but are not eligible to receive financial support. Nordic partners must be State Aid compliant in the Nordic countries.
- Proposals must be submitted electronically through the NordForsk Application Portal by the call deadline. In addition, for administrative purposes, Japanese partners must submit a supplemental application form to AMED through e-Rad.
- In order to promote interoperability of Nordic and Japanese data, applications must put explicit emphasis on good health data management.
- Proposals must be written in English and follow the structure set out in the application form available on the NordForsk Application Portal.
- There must be one host institution (Project Owner) for the research project from a research-performing organisation based in one of the Nordic countries co-funding the call (Finland, Norway and Sweden) as well as one host institution from Japan. The Nordic Project Owner enters into agreement with NordForsk for the Nordic part of the budget. The Japanese Project Owner enters into agreement with AMED.
- If the Project Leader comes from Japan, the Nordic Project Owner must appoint a Co-PI that will be NordForsk’s contact point.
- The Project Leader and Co-PI must be qualified researchers at the host institution.
- A researcher may only serve as a Project Leader for one application under this call. Research institutions may be affiliated with more than one application, and individual researchers may participate in several applications provided that total planned activities do not exceed one FTE and that the activities included in the proposals are not overlapping.
- The projects must describe how data should be managed according to high data management standards and how to promote interoperability of Nordic-Japanese data.
- Projects funded under this call for proposals must publish with Open Access.
- The proposal must describe how it will secure coordination with other ongoing activities at the international, Nordic or national level in order not to overlap or put extra pressure on an already pressured health care system due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The proposal must include a signed Letter of Commitment from each partner institution. Letters of Commitment must be signed by a person authorised to take on commitments to implement the proposed project on behalf of the institution for the entire duration of the project. If funded, the partners must sign a consortium agreement.
For more information, visit https://www.amed.go.jp/koubo/20/01/2001B_00014.html