Deadline: 3-Dec-20
The ”la Caixa” Foundation launches the fourth edition of the Call for biomedical and health research projects with the aim of identifying and giving support to the most promising initiatives of scientific excellence with potential value and high social impact, whether in basic, clinical or translational research.
The fundamental aim of this Call is to foster research in groundbreaking and highly relevant projects that lead the advancement of knowledge and offer solutions related to some of the most important health problems of our century.
The ”la Caixa” Foundation seeks research projects of scientific excellence in its field, with potential value and a high social impact. The Foundation encourages projects with an innovative focus that cross the boundaries between different areas of research, aimed at new and emerging research fields and/or including unconventional approaches to problems of health.
Objectives
- Basic research provides knowledge to understand nature and its laws.
- Clinical research is the research conducted with human subjects (or on the material of human origin such as tissues, specimens, and cognitive phenomena) for which the research team (or colleagues) directly interacts with human subjects.
- Translational research fosters the bidirectional integration of basic research and clinical research, with the long-term aim of improving the health of the public. It expedites the movement between basic research and clinical research that leads to:
- Stimulate a robust scientific understanding of human health and disease.
- New or improved scientific understanding or standards of care, better patient outcomes, the implementation of best practices, and improved health status in communities.
Funding Information
For the Call, project proposals, to be executed over up to 3 years, may be:
- Individual projects: submitted by a single research organization (Host Organization, HO), requesting up to a maximum of €500,000.
- Research consortium projects: submitted by at least two and no more than five research organizations and coordinated by the HO. Research consortium projects may request up to a maximum of €1,000,000.
Thematic Areas
Proposals must be submitted in the following thematic areas:
- Neuroscience.
- Infectious diseases.
- Oncology.
- Cardiovascular and associated metabolic diseases: projects in cardiovascular diseases and metabolic diseases associated with cardiovascular risks or alterations.
- Enabling technologies: projects focused on the creation and development of health facilitating technologies coming from fields as micro and nanoelectronics, computational science, big data, photonics, nanotechnology, biotechnology, advanced materials or advanced manufacturing, among others.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Host Organization must be a Research Performing Organization (a non-profit organization dedicated to research in accordance with the definition of section 0) based in Spain or Portugal. In the case of Research Consortiums Projects or of Individual Projects including CSOs, the Host Organization will act as the coordinating organization.
- Organizations are defined by a unique identification number (NIF in Spanish Organizations or VAT number, NIPC in Portuguese Organizations) for all purposes (e.g. submissions of proposals, the constitution of Research Consortiums, etc).
- Both Individual Projects and Research Consortium Projects proposals must include a Project Leader (PL). In the case of Research Consortium Projects, the Application must also include one Principal Investigator (PI) for each of the Research Performing Organizations (RPO) of the Research Consortium. Only one PI per RPO is allowed.
- People who act as PL and PI must be of legal age and may be of any nationality.
- The PL must have a minimum of 7 years of experience in postdoctoral research.
- Within the same Call, each PL can only submit a single proposal as a PL; however, they can collaborate on other Projects as PI of a RPO of the Research Consortium or as a Team Member.
- The PLs of Projects awarded with a grant from the Health Research Call will not be allowed to submit new Proposals as PLs in the three editions following the same call.
- The PL must be linked, either by statute, work contract or another type of collaboration, within the framework of this project, to the Host Organization when applying for the grant.
- The Project Leader needs the agreement of the Host Organization to be able to submit the Proposal.
- The Host Organization shall represent all the Organizations of the Project before the ”la Caixa” Foundation.
- The PL and the Host Organization are responsible for guaranteeing the implementation of the
- Project in accordance with the initial conditions stated in the Application and the Agreement.
- There is no limit to the number of Projects that a Host Organization can submit or for which it may receive grants as a Host Organization or as a member of a Research Consortium.
Project Selection
- Proposals are selected on the basis of a rigorous process that will be carried out by peer reviewers in accordance with the highest standards of quality, impartiality, objectivity and transparency.
- The process consists of an initial pre-selection remote phase and a second selection phase of face-to-face interviews conducted by Selection Committees in each of the research areas.
For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3kGjNCF