Jan 11, 2023

ERA Neuron Call in 2023: „Resilience and Vulnerability in Mental Health“ is open!

Diese grafische Darstellung stellt den Kopf eines Menschen dar. Im Gehirn blinken viele farbige Lichter und Zahlen auf.

The aim of the call is to facilitate multinational, collaborative research projects that will address critical translational questions, to improve our knowledge concerning neuro-biological mechanisms involved in resilience or vulnerability to environmental challenges in mental health.

The present call aims to fund preclinical research up to proof-of-concept clinical studies addressing neurobiological mechanistic understanding of vulnerability and resilience to mental disorders. Research areas may cover a broad range of aspects including among others genetic, epigenetic, anatomical, molecular, immunological, and endocrine mechanisms. Proposals aiming at developing predictive, preventative, diagnostic and/or therapeutic approaches with the potential to enhance resilience based on known or hypothesized neurobiological mechanisms are within the scope of this call, as are proposals to understand the neurobiological basis of therapeutic technologies promoting resilience.

The NEURON funding organizations particularly strive to fund multidisciplinary and translational research proposals that combine basic, clinical and/or technological approaches. The consortia should submit novel, ambitious ideas that can only be achieved by the complementary collaboration between partners.

Research proposals should cover at least one of the following areas:

Fundamental research addressing mental health vulnerability and resilience including the pathogenesis, aetiology, progression, treatment, and prevention of mental diseases initiated by exposure to adverse environmental challenges.
Clinical research addressing mental health vulnerability and resilience aiming to develop novel strategies for prevention, diagnosis, patient stratification, therapy and/or rehabilitation for mental diseases initiated by exposure to adverse environmental challenges.

The following research areas are excluded from this call:

Neurodegenerative disorders that are addressed by the EU Joint Programme –
Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND)3.
Proposals focusing on existing pharmacological treatments with their current indications
Proposals focusing solely on technological developments in disregard of neurobiological mechanisms

Timeline and eligibility criteria:

07.03.2023 – pre-proposal submission
29.06.2023 – full-proposal submission
max. 360,000 Euros German funding per project (BMBF and DFG funding, overhead included)
Funding for transnational joint projects with min three partner from three participating funding organisations
maximum of five partners
Involvement of early career researchers as consortium partners is highly encouraged

Participating countries:

Australia, Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany*, Hungary*, Ireland*, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway*, Poland*, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland*, Taiwan, Turkey*

*Decision pending