Japan-Nordic Frontier Research Projects for Healthy Longevity

Deadline: 07-Oct-21

Based on this background, a joint call entitled “Japan-Nordic Frontier Research Projects for Healthy Longevity” for proposals seeking funding for Japan-Nordic collaboration is now announced as a collaborative effort between the Academy of Finland, Research Council of Norway, Swedish Research Council, Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), and NordForsk.

The Nordic countries and Japan face similar demographic challenges. Age-related health challenges in their increasingly elderly populations are among the greatest concerns of future health care and will demand steadily rising costs for both the health care system and society. Increased knowledge leading to more healthy years for individuals could in the long run prevent these rising costs as well as improve citizens’ quality of life.

The aim of the call is to generate new knowledge on healthy ageing and longevity through Japan-Nordic research collaboration. The thematic framework includes fundamental, translational/basic clinical and epidemiological research on populations in the Nordic countries and Japan.

Examples of such utilization include, but are not limited to:

Health data being utilized 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 eg 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.

Health data is defined here as data directly or indirectly linked to individuals, often by a personal identification number. This includes, but is not limited to:

Register or electronic health record data
Biobank analysis data
Omics, imaging, laboratory or other health care data
Patient self-reported data
Expression patterns, biomarkers, mutations to be tested in a more clinical setting.

Funding Information

The total funding available under the call is approximately NOK 25 million. The Nordic funding allocated to the call is approximately NOK 18 million (approx. EUR 1.8 million) in total through a Nordic common pot. The Japanese funding allocated to the call is JPY 90 million (approx. NOK 6.9 million).

Eligibility Criteria

The research project must include partners from research-performing organizations 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 organizations, such as patient organizations 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 supplementary application form to AMED through the e-Rad application system.
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 organization 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 during 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 authorized 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.