ERA-NET NEURON: JTC 2023 Launch of the Joint Transnational Call for Proposals in Biomedical Research on “Resilience and Vulnerability in Mental Health”
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), an associated partner of the ERA-NET NEURON, is pleased to announce the launch of the 2023 joint call for research proposals on the topic “Mechanisms of Resilience and Vulnerability to Environmental Challenges in Mental Health”.
The aim of the call is to facilitate multinational, collaborative research projects that will address critical translational questions to improve our knowledge concerning neurobiological mechanisms involved in resilience or vulnerability to environmental challenges in mental health.
The call will be conducted simultaneously by the respective national and regional funding organisations and coordinated centrally by the Joint Call Secretariat (see below).
The 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 organisations 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.
Only transnational projects will be funded. Each consortium submitting a proposal must comprise three to five research partners from at least three different participating countries.
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. This may include the use of knowledge on neurobiological mechanisms for the development of innovative technologies with the potential to promote mental health, reduce the incidence of mental disorders and improve clinical outcomes.
- 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. This may include research proposals aiming at the identification of neurobiological targets to enhance resilience.
The following research areas are excluded from this call:
- Neurodegenerative disorders that are addressed by the EU Joint Programme –Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND)
- Proposals focusing on existing pharmacological treatments with their current indications
- Proposals focusing solely on technological developments in disregard of neurobiological mechanisms
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.
The submission deadline for pre-proposals is 7 March 2023, 14:00 CET.
By mid-May 2022 the coordinators of selected pre-proposals will be invited by the Joint Call Secretariat to submit a full proposal by June 2023.
Funding is expected to start in early 2024.
The individual research partners in a consortium will be funded by the respective national/regional NEURON funding organisation(s). Eligibility criteria are the matter of individual partner funding organisations and additional national/regional regulations and requirements may apply. Applicants are strongly advised to follow the instructions in the funder-specific eligibility section, published on the NEURON website and to contact their national/regional funding organisation to confirm eligibility rules before submitting a proposal.
Please note that according to a resolution of the DFG General Assembly, since 1 August 2019, DFG funding may only be awarded to institutions that have implemented the guidelines laid down in the Code of Conduct for Safeguarding Good Research Practice in their own regulations in a legally binding manner.
This means that also for international proposals funding from the DFG can only be received if the guidelines for ensuring good research practice (see link below) have been implemented by the institution of the German applicant. If you have any questions on this subject, please contact the Scientific Integrity team at the DFG Head Office (see contact below). Further information regarding implementation can be found at the webpage on Scientific Integrity (see link below).
Further Information
Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice. Code of Conduct:
Information on the implementation of the Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice. Code of Conduct:
Contact of the DFG´s Scientific Integrity team (Good Research Practice):
Pre- and full proposals shall be submitted via the Joint Call Secretariat only.
Proposals selected for funding will be assigned to DFG and BMBF by the management organisations. Applicants will receive a personalised invitation to submit the proposals in the electronic systems of the respective funding organisation. (DFG: elan portal accessible at at https://elan.dfg.de)
All applicants conducting experiments in/with humans, human tissue/organoids, regardless if at the end funded by BMBF or DFG, have to submit an ethical approval and/or a positive vote from the relevant national or local ethics committee(s) to the DFG prior to the funding decision by the DFG Joint Committee. This decision is expected in October 2023. Thus, it is strongly recommended to start the respective procedures when the applicant is invited to full proposal stage.
Please note the DFG’s data protection notice on research funding, which can be viewed and downloaded at
If necessary, please also forward this information to those individuals whose data will be processed by the DFG due to their involvement in your project.
NEURON JTC2023 website:
Call text:
Eligibility criteria and national regulations:
Contact
DFG Head Office:
- Dr. Anke Ley
Life Sciences II
phone: +49 228 885-3197
anke.ley@dfg.d
Joint Call Secretariat:
- Dr. Sophia Schach
German Aerospace Centre Project Management Agency
DLR-PT
phone: +49 228 3821-1743
neuron-eranet@dlr.d