Deadline: 6-Dec-20
European Science Foundation is encouraging for Fight Kick Cancer programme which is an exciting venture supported by three European NGO’s that have joined forces to launch an opportunity to support academic research for paediatric cancers.
Paediatric cancers and their treatments differ from adult cancers. Hence, there is an urgent need for research projects developed specifically for children with cancer. In the field of oncology, childhood cancer research has been lagging behind, with stagnating cure rates over the last 15 years. Some types of paediatric malignancies still have a low cure rate, or no cure and yet affected children hardly benefit from innovative therapeutic approaches. Research on those malignancies remain largely insufficient.
Their vision is to cure all children and adolescents with cancer through the development of better targeted and less toxic therapies. Fight Kids Cancer’s mission will be to catalyze and accelerate European research that results in innovative and impactful new therapies that improve the outcome for all children and adolescents with cancer.
Objectives
The Fight Kids Cancer programme (hereafter “FKC”) aims to catalyze and support pan European innovative and relevant research initiatives in pediatric cancer to develop innovative research that improves the outcome for all children and adolescents with cancer. This call will cover the following non-exclusive themes:
- To realize real impact on young patients: Improve survival rate & reduce toxicity to restore young patients to full health after treatment
- To produce cutting-edge science to advance knowledge of pediatric malignancies.
- To support improved interdisciplinary knowledge, methods and collaborations for tackling the issues of today.
- To strengthen collaboration and the development of scientific capacity across Europe.
Priorities
This call aims to prioritize areas that will effectively benefit young patients by:
- improving their survival rate
- improving their quality of life during and after the treatments
- improving our knowledge on cancer causes and treatment resistance
Funding Information
- For this call, 3 million euros will be awarded for clinical trials (with a maximum of 1,5 million per project) and translational projects (with a maximum of 500 000 euros per project).
Project Categories
Projects are expected to propose research on either early phase clinical trials or Translational research. Applicants to both categories are encouraged to address innovative interventions or approaches towards novel treatment (such as innovative drugs, artificial intelligence, imaging, radiotherapy, surgical approaches…). The two categories of projects are:
- Early phase clinical trials into evaluating innovative therapies for children and adolescents with cancer addressing hematological malignancies, solid pediatric and adolescent cancers.
- Documentation for provision of investigational drug(s) must be provided
- Demonstration that the trial is conducted and financed in at least 2 European countries
- Co-funding of clinical trials is possible, however precise details, justification and timeline must be provided
- Enrolment of patients must commence not later than 12 months from the start of funding
- Translational research projects addressing either hematological malignancy, solid pediatric and adolescent cancers. Proposals are encouraged on:
- Projects identifying novel mechanisms of action
- Projects that may result in innovative new therapies or better models of disease.
- Pre-clinical projects including high-risk / high return proposals,
- Projects that leverage pediatric tumor models will be considered.
- Multi-disciplinary or multi-institution collaborations are strongly encouraged.
Project Selection Criteria
The submitted proposals should include the following sections, these criteria are the basis of the evaluation procedure. All submitted proposals should clearly address the following three evaluation criteria.
Criterion 1: Scientific excellence
The Description of Proposed Research should address the following points:
- Specific objectives and hypotheses;
- Background information including rationale and scientific issues relating to the research question;
- Methodology and approach;
- Innovative aspects of the project;
- Relevance to the FKC aims, potential relation to international research work in the field and
anticipated achievements and outputs.
Criterion 2: Quality and efficiency of the implementation and the management
This section covers the details of the planning and management of the project’s activities including timing, personnel, budget, deliverables and feasibility; it should also include a brief outline of the organizations involved in the consortium, as named on the applications. In particular, it should include:
- Feasibility, including documentation for availability of any investigational agent(s) and Gantt chart.
- Details on the nature of the organizations named (i.e. university, research institute, NGO, etc).
Outline the specific expertise available for the research at the host organization and that of any
associated organizations and beneficiaries. - Track record on the key named individuals/researchers, their role in the project and details of
relevant experience and how they are best suited to conduct the research proposed. - Any associated collaborations, partnerships or co-funding (either proposed or secured) that may
be used in the project. - Management of both project and resources, identifying the training and career development
opportunities for personnel working on the project and the management structure within the
project team. - Identification of potential risks and risk mitigation plan.
- Data management plan: a detailed description of the proposed data management structures,
plans, responsibilities and data sharing.
Criterion 3: Potential impact
In particular, the potential to Impact section should address the following:
- How result from this research would both advance knowledge and improve outcome for children
and adolescents with cancer. - Based on these results, outline how further development should proceed.
- quality of the proposed measures to exploit and disseminate the project results to
targeted peers (e.g. scientific, industry); - quality of the proposed measures to communicate the project activities and results to
the public.
- quality of the proposed measures to exploit and disseminate the project results to
- Collaboration with the funding organizations is identified and confirmed to assist in the
dissemination of the projects, awareness on paediatric cancers and fundraising activities of the
funders.
Eligibility Criteria
- Funding is aimed at supporting new research projects across Europe. The lead institution must be from the list of eligible countries, with preference given to institutions with a strong track record in pediatric cancer research. Other project partners are encouraged and can be from related fields of expertise, providing they operate as not-for-profit. See Guidance for Applicants for details.
- Eligible countries included are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom.
For more information, visit https://www.esf.org/funding-programmes/fight-kick-cancer-2020-2021-call-for-proposals/