ERDERA European Partnership Call 2025

The European Rare Diseases Research Alliance (ERDERA) has been established to help in coordinating the research efforts of European, Associated and non-European countries in the field of rare diseases and implement the objectives of the International Rare Disease Research Consortium (IRDiRC).

The aim of the 2025 call (JTC2025) call is to enable scientists in different countries to build an effective collaboration on a common interdisciplinary research project based on complementarities and sharing of expertise, with the expected impact being future use of the results to benefit patients.

Projects should focus on a group of rare diseases or a on a single rare disease if there is no valid rationale/evidence for the benefit of grouping diseases. The classification of rare diseases follows the European definition, i.e. a disease affecting not more than five in 10.000 persons in the European Union, Associated Countries and Canada.

Topics

The ERDERA JTC2025, aims to fund multinational research projects under the general topic “Pre-clinical therapy studies for rare diseases using small molecules and biologicals – development and validation”.  Proposals must cover at least two of the following areas:

1. Development of novel therapies in a pre-clinical setting through cell, organoid and animal disease model studies, and/or use of in silico or artificial intelligence models to accelerate the success rate of the pre-clinical stage.
2. Development of predictive and pharmacodynamics biomarkers correlated to the efficiency of the therapy in a preclinical setting that could serve as surrogate endpoints.
3. Replication of pre-clinical studies in an independent lab to increase validity of exploratory findings.
4. Pre-clinical proof of concept studies for evidence of pharmacological activity in vitro and in vivo, pharmaco-kinetics and pharmaco-dynamics of the investigational drug (i.e., small molecule(s) and/or biologic) and first toxicology and safety data as well as studies to support readiness for initiating clinical trial authorization conforming to regulatory requirements.

Translatability into humans should be the key focus of the project, and applicants should demonstrate access to relevant scientific or regulatory expertise (e.g., through innovation task forces or competent national authorities).

The following are individual or co-promotion beneficiaries:

a) Non-entrepreneurial entities of the R&I system, namely:

    i. Higher education institutions, their institutes and R&D units;

    ii. State, Associated or International Laboratories based in Portugal;

   iii. Private non-profit institutions whose main purpose is R&D activities, including Collaborative Laboratories (CoLab) and Technology and Innovation Centres (TIC);

   iv. Other non-profit public and private institutions developing or participating in scientific research activities.

b) Companies of any nature and in any legal form.

The information contained in this section does not exempt you from consulting Article 3 of the Regulation of projects financed exclusively by national funds, Regulation no. 5/2024, of 3 January, which amends and republishes Regulation no. 999/2016, of 31 October (see FCT Regulation, available in the 'Call Documents' area).

The ERDERA JTC2025 consists of the submission of pre-proposals (1st phase) and full proposals (2nd phase). Only the pre-proposals submitted by the transnational consortia in the 1st phase may be invited to submit full proposals in the 2nd phase.

Each Proposing Institution (PI) that is part of a transnational consortium can only apply for funding from the Participant Funding Agencies (PFA) of its country or region. See Guidelines for Applicants (under Call Documents), for information on the eligibility rules of each PFA and on the transnational eligibility rules. For a proposal to be eligible, it must comply with the national and transnational eligibility rules.

To submit their application, each Portuguese PI wishing to apply for funding from FCT should:

1. Consult the Call Documents area;

2. Consult FCT eligibility rules (see Guidelines for Applicants);

3. Submit, by the transnational consortium coordinator, the proposal form on the application submission platform (see Important links) until 13:00 GMT in mainland Portugal on 13/02/2025;

4. Send to FCT, within 10 working days after the deadline for submitting the application, a Statement of Commitment (SoC) completed and signed by the Portuguese Researcher in Charge (RC) identified by the PI and by a qualified representative of the PI. The SoC should be sent to the email address indicated in Contacts.

Please note:

• Failure to send the SoC to FCT on the date referred to in paragraph 4, or the unjustified delivery of the SoC after that deadline, or the delivery of an incomplete SoC, without one of the two parts – RC and PI – that make it up or without the signatures of the Portuguese RC and/or a qualified representative of the Portuguese PI, will result in the application being declared ineligible.
• If two or more Portuguese applicants from the same transnational consortium apply for funding from FCT, each must send a completed and signed SoC to FCT.
• One SoC must be sent to FCT for each application submitted by the same RC and PI.
• Portuguese partners of transnational consortia that do not apply for funding from FCT do not need to submit the SoC to FCT.
• The PI stamp or white seal is only required on manually signed SoC.

The information on this page is only a summary of the call, does not exempt the candidates from carefully reading all the call documents available on this page and on the call website (see Important links) and refers only to FCT’s participation in this call, unless expressly indicated.

Eligibility

The eligibility check of proposals is carried out at both stages of the call (pre-proposal submission stage and full proposal submission stage):

• National/Regional Funding Agencies check national eligibility of applications, ensuring compliance with the formal requirements in the applicable national/regional regulations and other applicable documents (see FCT Regulation, Financial Execution Rules and national annexes in the Call Documents area).
• Transnational eligibility check of applications will be performed by the Call Secretariat, according to the transnational eligibility criteria presented in the Call Text and in the Guidelines for Applicants in the Call Documents area.

Please note:

• For a proposal to be declared eligible it must fulfil both the national and transnational criteria.

Evaluation

The call includes two evaluation phases:

• Pre-proposal evaluation stage.
• Full proposal evaluation stage.

Proposals will be evaluated according to the evaluation criteria described in the Call Text in the Call Documents area.

The participating national/regional funding agencies, will decide, according to the stage the call is at, which 1) pre-proposals to invite to submit a full proposal and which 2) proposals to recommend for funding.

• FCT financial commitment for the call: 350 000 €
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese coordination: 150 000 €
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese participation: 100 000 €

Please note:

• Portuguese institutions funding must follow FCT’s Regulation on projects funded solely by national funds, Regulation no. 5/2024, of 3 January, which amends and republishes Regulation no. 999/2016, of 31 October (see FCT Regulation andFinancial Execution Rules, both available in the Call Documents area, and the applicable national and European legislation).
• If more than one Portuguese applicant from the same transnational consortium applies for funding from FCT, the combined budget requested from FCT by the Portuguese applicants may not exceed the maximum funding limit for a consortium with Portuguese coordination (150 000 €) or with Portuguese  participation (100 000 €). The Portuguese applicants of the same transnational consortium will have to share the funding that will be granted by FCT.
• The dedication (FTE) in transnational projects is not considered for the 100% (FTE) dedication to national projects.
• Under the terms of number 2 of Article 7 of the Regulation on projects funded solely by national funds, payments made directly or indirectly to companies through the Proposing Institution cannot exceed 50% of the total cost of the company’s participation.

- Call website

- Application submission platform

- Partnership website

- Partnership page on the FCT website

Rita Cavaleiro and Pedro Ferreira

erdera@fct.pt