€30 million to scale-up global research on neurodegenerative diseases The EU Joint Programme - Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) in partnership with the European Commission has launched the ‘JPco-fuND’ call for proposals aimed at supporting transnational research collaborations in three JPND priority areas: Longitudinal Cohort Approaches; Advanced Experimental Models; Risk and Protective Factors. The call will see more than 30 million euro being made available by JPND member countries, with a 10 million euro European Commission “topping up” fund. ‘Neurodegenerative Diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are a global health, economic and social emergency with numbers affected expected to double by 2030 and more than triple by 2050’ according to Professor Philippe Amouyel, Chair of the JPND Management Board. ‘With this in mind, JPND-participating countries have identified three further areas of greatest need for targeted investment in order to increase progress in the prevention and treatment of these diseases, as well as in patient care. Professor Amouyel added ‘This call is launched as part of a major new cohesive action between JPND and the European Commission entitled JPco-fuND - the first concrete synergy between JPND and Horizon 2020 designed to address the global threat of neurodegenerative diseases’. According to Professor Thomas Gasser, University of Tübingen and Chair of the JPND Scientific Advisory Board, ‘This call aims to pool the necessary expertise across Europe and globally to address these needs in the fight against neurodegenerative diseases. The call will support innovative, multi-disciplinary, collaborative research projects that will add value to the three research areas’. The following neurodegenerative diseases are included for the three call topics outlined below: • Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias • Parkinson’s disease and PD‐related disorders • Prion diseases • Motor neurone diseases • Huntington’s disease • Spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA) • Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) Topic 1: Genetic, epigenetic and environmental risk and protective factors of neurodegenerative diseases Topic 2: Longitudinal cohort approaches in neurodegenerative diseases Topic 3: Advanced animal or cell experimental models of neurodegenerative diseases Note 1: The call has a two-step procedure, with a first stage (pre-proposal submission) deadline of 23:59h C.E.T. on March 10th 2015. Note 2: Proposals may cover more than one of the topics specified above, as long as the relevant work is carried out in a country that will financially support the topic. The balance of awards between the three topics will be decided by the Peer Review Panel and will depend on the quality of the applications. More information on the participating countries in each topic, in addition to specific grant practicalities is available on the JPND website at http://www.neurodegenerationresearch.eu Note 3: Call applicants are encouraged to take advantage of the JPND online partnering tool to showcase their research group’s expertise, search for appropriate partners and pitch call-related ideas. An improved, multi-lingual version of the pilot tool is available on the JPND website at http://www.neurodegenerationresearch.eu Note 4: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 643417 – JPcofuND. Countries Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia, United Kingdom
