ERA-NET NEURON JTC 2025 "Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Neuroscience of Pain".
Fond National de la Recherche Scientifique (F.R.S.-FNRS)
The present call aims to fund preclinical and clinical research up to proof-of-concept clinical studies addressing the neuroscience of pain. Research areas may cover a broad range of aspects such as biomarkers, clinical phenotyping, intra- and inter-individual differences, the role of neuroplasticity and plasticity in the nociceptive system, neuroinflammation, sensitisation and persistence, genetic, epigenetic and molecular mechanisms (neuronal and non-neuronal) as well as the psychological impact of chronic pain and its management. The development of (multimodal) preventive, diagnostic and/or therapeutic approaches based on pathophysiological mechanisms are within the scope of the call. Pharmacological studies and technological developments, including the integration of artificial intelligence, are also included. If clinical diagnoses are relevant to the project, the applicants should aim to use the chronic pain classification of the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision (ICD-11) including, among others, chronic primary pain, chronic post-surgical or post-traumatic pain, chronic secondary musculoskeletal pain, and chronic neuropathic pain. Research on headache, including e.g. migraine or cluster headache, is within the scope of the call if the research proposal clearly considers cross-cutting, transdisciplinary and transdiagnostic aspects applicable to other chronic pain syndromes. Research proposals that focus solely on acute pain, without establishing a connection to chronic pain, are outside the scope of this call. It should be made clear by applicants how their projects will contribute to alleviating chronic pain for patients in clinical practice.
The ERA-NET NEURON funding organisations particularly wish to promote multi-disciplinary work and translational research proposals that combine basic and clinical approaches. The involvement of clinical research groups is strongly encouraged. 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 on neuroscientific aspects of the pathogenesis, aetiology, prevention, progression, and treatment of chronic pain. This may include the development of innovative or shared resources and technologies considered of relevance in the context of this call.
Clinical research to develop new strategies for prevention, diagnosis, patient stratification, therapy, and rehabilitation procedures for chronic pain syndromes.
Financement
Each partner is funded separately by the national/regional funding organisation they are applying to. They must fulfil the conditions of their funding organisation.
The maximum amount of requested funding per project is 200.000 € for a total period of three years. If the project involves the recruitment of a PhD student, the project duration of the F.R.S.-FNRS sub-project could be up to four years.
Eligible costs items
Personnel costs: 80,000€ EUR per year on average for the duration of the project. The usual duration of ERA-NET research programmes is three years. However, when the project involves a PhD student, the principal investigator can apply for an additional one year funding in order to complete the four years PhD programme. Since this programme is NOT co-funded by the European Commission, this final year should be included in the budget submitted to this call.
Equipment: can be eligible up to 20% of the total budget of the project
Running costs: travel expenses; organisation of small scientific events in Belgium; consumables and the following support costs: consumables Publication Designing (conception d’ouvrage) Dictionary Production (réalisation de dictionnaire) Purchase of Books Encoding Software Access Rights Congress Registration Fees Purchase of Computer Scanning Travel costs Visa costs Open Access publication of an article up until 500 euros (see F.R.S-FNRS Open Access policy).
“Overhead” is not an eligible cost for FNRS. If the project is selected for funding, these costs will be subject to a separate agreement between the institution of the beneficiary and the F.R.S.-FNRS.
Pour postuler
Submission of joint transnational proposals:
There will be a two-stage procedure for joint applications: pre-proposals and full proposals. In both cases, one joint proposal document (in English) shall be prepared by the partners of a joint transnational proposal, and must be submitted to the Joint Call Secretariat by the coordinator.
Submission of F.R.S-FNRS proposal:
Applicants must provide basic administrative data by submitting an administrative application on e-space within 5 working days after the general deadline of the call to be eligible. Please select the “PINT-MULTI” funding instrument when creating the administrative application. This call follows a one-step procedure.
Deadlines:
Pre-proposal: March 6, 2025 at 14:00 CET
Full Proposals: June 26, 2025 at 12:00 CET
e-space: March 13, 2025 at 14:00 (CEST)
Requis d'admission
Eligibility rules for the consortia
Only transnational projects will be funded.
Each consortium submitting a proposal must comprise a minimum of three research partners eligible for funding by organisations listed in this call text.
Involvement of promising early career researchers (ECRs)5 as consortium partners is highly encouraged and will be part of the evaluation criteria (see section 4 of the call text).
The eligible research partners must be from at least three different participating countries.
The total number of research partners in a consortium is limited to five, including partners participating with their own expenses.
No more than two consortium partners can be from the same country. Attention should be paid to respect gender balance among the partners of a consortium.
Eligibility rules for F.R.S. - FNRS
Applicants requesting funding from F.R.S. FNRS must comply with the following rules.
The applicant must be affiliated to a university from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB).
At the closure of the call, the applicant should also:
- Be a permanent researcher of F.R.S-FNRS (Chercheur qualifié, maître de recherches ou Directeur de recherche) or;
- Hold a tenure track position (or an assimilated position including pending tenure track) with a research institution from the FWB
After the submission of applications, the F.R.S.-FNRS and the research institutions are required to verify the eligibility of the candidates. The F.R.S.-FNRS reserves the right to refuse those whose eligibility criteria would not comply with the Regulation.
In order the check the compliance with these eligibility criteria, please contact your contact person at ULB-TTO (see details below). T
he complete F.R.S-FNRS rules for international research projects is available at the following link: https://www.frs-fnrs.be/docs/Reglement-et-documents/International/FRS-FNRS_PINT-Multi.pdf
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