Timeline

8 January 2024Launch of the call
8 March 2024Deadline for pre-proposal submission
14 May 2024Selection of a short list of 43 projects
28 June 2024Deadline for full proposal submission
10-11 September 2024Peer review panel meeting, ranking list
November 2024Funding decision
First half 2025Start of projects

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, Romania, Slovakia, Taiwan and Türkiye) 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 Spanish State Research Agency, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, AEI (Spain).

Peer Review

In order to properly cover all aspects of the broad topic, 45 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 16 scientific, 11 patient, and 9 ethics reviewers gave written evaluation on the full proposals. On this basis, 13 of the scientific reviewers, 6 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 as possible were selected for funding, taking into account the national budgets available.
As a result of this step, 14 projects could be funded. The projects comprise 64 research groups (Principal Investigators) from 13 different countries. The total funding volume amounts to about 15.2 m€ for three years.

Funding organisations supporting this call

19 funding agencies from 17 different countries participated in the JTC 2024 on “Bidirectional Brain-Body Interactions”.

Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS (F.R.S.-FNRS)Belgium
Ministry of Science and Education (MSE)Croatia
French National Research Agency (ANR)France
Federal ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)Germany
German Research Foundation (DFG)Germany
National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH)Hungary
Chief Scientist Office, Ministry of Health (CSO-MOH)Israel
Italian Ministry of Health (IT-MOH)Italy
Latvian Council of Science (LZP)Latvia
Research Council of Lithuania (LMT)Lithuania
The Research Council of Norway (RCN)Norway
National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR)Poland
Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development & Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI)Romania
Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS)Slovakia
Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI)Spain
Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII)Spain
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)Switzerland
National Science and Technology Council (NSTC)Taiwan
The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TUBITAK)Türkiye