ERA4Health European Partnership Call 2026 (PREVENT-OO)

FCT is a member of the co-funded European Partnership ERA4Health - Fostering a European Research Area for Health, aiming to increase European transnational collaborative research funding by creating a funding body for joint programming in priority areas addressing European public health needs.

The ERA4Health 2026 joint transnational call aims to support collaboration on interdisciplinary research projects based on complementarities and sharing of expertise in the field of the obesity with a clear translational research approach. In-depth, two-way engagement with different actors from academia, healthcare settings and providers, industry, as well as patients’ organizations will help to develop effective research strategies. This call promotes cooperation at transnational level and will open the way for new knowledge and new prevention strategies

The applications, addressing multidisciplinary research, must cover only one of the two following topics and address at least one of the two specified subtopics (subtopic 1a and/or 1b for topic 1 and subtopic 2a and/or 2b for topic 2):

Topic 1. Understanding causes of obesity and overweight and its complications with mechanistic research

• Subtopic 1a. to investigate biological mechanisms, including chronobiological, genetic and/or epigenetic mechanisms, underlying the onset and progression of overweight and obesity, and related diseases.
• Subtopic 1b. to investigate how overweight and obesity contribute to the development of related clinical complications and/or affect the mechanism of action of therapeutics against other diseases/disorders.

Topic 2. Prevention and public health strategies for critical transitional periods of life (due to biological changes or socio-environmental changes)

• Subtopic 2a. to understand and address neglected determinants, including their interdependency, in the onset and the progression of overweight and obesity in transitional periods of life.
• Subtopic 2b. to develop novel tools or preventive strategies that can be implemented against the onset and the progression of overweight and obesity in transitional periods of life taking into consideration physiological, pathophysiological, psychological behavioural influences and/or socioeconomic status of the citizens/patients.

1. 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 with head office in Portugal.

iii. Non-profit private institutions whose main object is R&D activity, including Collaborative Laboratories (CoLab) and Technology and Innovation Centres (CTI).

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

b) Companies of any type and under any legal form.

The information contained in this section does not exempt you from consulting Article 3 of FCT’s Regulation No. 999/2016, in its current wording, i.e., as amended and republished by Regulation No. 5/2024 and corrected by Rectification Statement No. 366/2024/2, of 23 May 2024 (see FCT Regulation in Call Documents and the applicable national and European Union legislation).

The ERA4Health 2026 call 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 Participating Funding Agencies (PFA) of its country or region. See the Call Text and 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 Call Text and Guideline for Applicants).
3. Submit, by the transnational consortium coordinator, the proposal form on the application submission platform (see Important links) until 11:00 GMT in mainland Portugal on 21/01/2026.
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 applications 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, Normas de execução financeira 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 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: 500.000,00€
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese coordination: 250.000,00€
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese participation: 150.000,00€

Please note:

• Portuguese institutions funding must follow FCT’s Regulation No. 999/2016, in its current wording, i.e., as amended and republished by Regulation No. 5/2024 and corrected by Rectification Statement No. 366/2024/2, of 23 May 2024 (see FCT Regulation and Normas de execução financeira in Call Documents 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 (250.000,00€) or with Portuguese participation (150.000,00€). 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
• Matchmaking platform
• Application submission platform
• Partnership website
• Partnership page on the FCT website

- Rita Cavaleiro

- Joana Pinheiro

era4health@fct.pt