Joint Call (JTC 2022)

Translational research has the ambition to remove barriers to multidisciplinary and multi-professional collaboration.

It is envisioned that clinicians, researchers and operational staff from various sectors (academia, industry, regulatory bodies) will effectively work together to expedite the translation of scientific discoveries to clinical application and to more rapidly fuel research directions with observational or clinical findings.

In fact, the complexity of the process requires, at the individual and collective levels, the creation of translational medicine research interfaces/infrastructures.

To reach that goal, TRANSCAN-3 supports capacity building activities to promote the formation and upgrading of multidisciplinary teams in an integrated process: i) exchange/mobility of individual researchers/professionals in order to bring new expertise to an existing multidisciplinary translational team; and/or ii) recruitment of individual researchers/professionals by a translational research team in order to cover expertise and “know-how” unavailable in the existing team.

These types of activities, when present, will be supported within the projects, which will be selected for funding under TRANSCAN-3 JTC 2022.Thus, applicants may add an additional part to cover these activities (eventually with an associated separate budget, in compliance with the rules of the respective national/regional funding organisations).

Capacity building activities have to be fully coherent with the objectives of the research project, and aimed at strengthening the ability of participating team(s) to perform the work detailed in the project plan as well as to improve, in the long term, the quality and potential of the translational research performed by the team(s).

Depending on the project these activities could be (the following examples are indicative only, and neither exhaustive nor prescriptive): 1) exchanges/mobility of investigators (especially young investigators) between teams and countries participating in the project, 2) short term training of scientists, operational staff, etc., 3) training through technical workshops dedicated to relevant aspects of the scientific work planned in the project, 4) short training (one or few weeks) of several partner teams by one expert, etc.

Activities related to the dissemination of results such as hosting a symposium, conferences etc. are out of the scope of this capacity building component.Joint transnational research proposals may be submitted by applicants belonging to one of the following categories depending on national/regional eligibility rules as specified in Annex 3 to the Call Text (see pp. 24-26):Academic research groups (from universities or other higher education or research institutions).Clinical/public health sector research groups (from hospitals/public health and/or other health care settings and health organisations).Enterprise's research groups (depending on national/regional eligibility rules), with particular emphasis on small and medium-sized enterprises.The applicants are subject to eligibility criteria of national/regional funding organisations (see “Guidelines for Applicants”) and are advised to contact their respective national/regional contact points.Please note that non-compliance with the eligibility rules detailed below will lead to the rejection of the entire proposal without further review.Only transnational projects will be funded.Applications will be submitted by the coordinator.

The coordinator and each of the individual project partners (representing research groups) will be funded by the funding organisation from their country/region that is participating in the TRANSCAN-3 JTC 2022, and are therefore subject to national/regional eligibility rules.Each research consortium must involve a minimum of three (3) and a maximum of six (6) partners (comprising the project coordinator) eligible for funding, coming from different countries whose funders participate in the call.The maximum number of partners can be increased to 7 in the full proposal stage as a consequence of the widening process aimed at including one team from underrepresented countries/regions, as detailed in Section 10 of the Call Text (see pp.14-15).The partners must be from at least three (3) different countries participating in the call.

In addition, a consortium must not involve more than two (2) research groups from the same country (in such cases the minimum number of groups must be 4, coming from 3 different countries).A wide inclusion of research teams from all the countries/regions participating in the call is encouraged, with a particular attention to research teams from Hungary, Latvia, and Slovakia, in order to strengthen the European translational cancer research area.Each consortium is represented by a coordinator responsible for the scientific management (such as controlling, reporting, intellectual property rights issues, etc.) and for all the communications with the JCS.Partners not eligible for funding by one of the organisations participating in the JTC2022 (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 its own funding is allowed in consortia with at least three partners eligible for funding.

Partners with their own funding must be comprised in the maximum number of six partners.Applicants should refer to the annexes of the document “Guidelines for Applicants” containing all the specific national/regional eligibility criteria and should contact their respective national/regional funding organisation contact points for additional clarification, please refer to Annex 1 to the Call Text (pp. 19-21).

Please note that an eligibility check before the pre-proposal submission is mandatory for:Ministry of Health (IT-MOH), Italy;Fondazione Regionale per la Ricerca Biomedica (FRRB), Lombardy, Italy,Tuscany Region (TuscReg), Italy,Alliance Against Cancer (ACC), Italy; and,Chief Scientist Office - Ministry of Health (CSO-MOH), Israel.

Each consortium must involve at least one basic or pre-clinical research team and one clinical team.

It is also recommended to include an expert team in methodology, biostatistics or bioinformatics, depending on the type of work planned.

The consortium may also involve other teams with specialised skills and know-how (biobanks, model systems, technological platforms, etc.) or expertise (epidemiology and molecular epidemiology, early phase clinical trials, public health, ELSI, etc.).

The consortium should have sufficient critical mass to achieve ambitious scientific, technological and medical goals and, along with the particular contribution of each research team, should clearly demonstrate its transnational added value.

The translational nature of the research results is the key goal of TRANSCAN-3, therefore the consortium should also clearly demonstrate a knowledge transfer towards clinical, public health and/or industrial applications.The duration of the projects shall not exceed three (3) years.23 May 2022Publication of the call6 June 2022 at 16:00 (CEST)Opening of the on-line submission system for pre-proposals 18 July 2022 at 12:00 (CEST)Deadline for pre-proposal submission3 November 2022 Communication of the results of the pre-proposal assessment and invitation for full-proposal stage 17 November 2022 Opening of the submission system for full proposals15 December 2022 at 12:00 (CET)Deadline for full-proposal submissionExpected for April 2023Communication of the funding decisions to the applicantsSeptember 2023Expected project start (also subject to regional/national procedures)