Implementation of the call 2023 “Resilience and Vulnerability to Environmental Challenges in Mental Health”

Timeline

Proposal submission, peer review process, funding decision

Research consortia had to consist of 3 - 5 research groups from at least three NEURON partner countries participating in this call. Consortia including partners from countries that are to date underrepresented in this funding scheme (Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Turkey) could increase the total number of partners to six. The two-step process required at first the submission of short pre-proposals describing the research idea. From these a short list was selected and the respective consortia were invited to submit full proposals (see also below).
Both pre- and full proposals had to be submitted electronically by the coordinator of the consortium. Proposal templates and guidelines were provided by the Joint Call Secretariat in order to support the applicants in terms of the proposal format. The Joint Call Secretariat is hosted by the DLR Project Management Agency (Germany) and the French National Research Agency, ANR (France).

Peer Review

In order to properly cover all aspects of the broad topic, 35 experts were recruited from NEURON partner countries and beyond. Each pre-proposal was assessed in writing by three evaluators. The assessments were based on the criteria listed in the call text and consisted of a global score and additional comments. The projects were ranked according to the reviewer’s scores. Based on this ranking list, the funding organisations selected 43 projects whose coordinators were invited by the Joint Call Secretariat to submit full proposals. In total 18 scientific, 9 patient, and 7 ethics reviewers gave written evaluation on the full proposals. On this basis, 17 of the scientific reviewers, 4 of the patient reviewers and an ethics spokesperson discussed these full proposals thoroughly in a hybrid meeting and provided funding recommendations and a ranking list.

Funding decision and granting process

The funding decision was taken by the funding organisations participating in the joint call for proposals. Starting with the best proposal and following the ranking list, as many proposals were selected for funding, taking into account the national budgets available.
As a result of this step, the top 15 projects could be funded. The projects comprise 75 research groups (Principal Investigators) from 20 partner countries. The total funding volume amounts to about 16.8 m€ for three years.

Funding organisations supporting this call

23 funding agencies from 21 different countries participated in the JTC 2023 on “Mechanisms of Resilience and Vulnerability to Environmental Challenges in Mental Health”.