Funding programmes, competitions and awards

BioCannDo - Bioeconomy Awareness and Discourse Project

Europe’s economy depends on oil and gas for chemistry, energy and all kinds of daily life products. But fossil resources are scarce and their use harms the environment and our climate. The bioeconomy offers a way out of this dependency by providing industrial and daily life products made of bio-based resources from agriculture, forestry and the oceans. The bioeconomy is up to make Europe’s economy more sustainable, boost growth and create new jobs.

Enhancing the awareness of the broad public is the key to the success of every innovation but to achieve acceptance, questions concerning the societal and economic issues related to the bioeconomy need to be addressed in a transparent, scientifically sound and understandable way.

Everything which is new needs time for explanation and the possibility to voice concerns related to it. People have a lot of questions about bio-based products. They are unfamiliar to the terminology which is often quite scientific; they worry about quality and functionality compared to traditional products. Finally, they demand answers about the sustainability of bio-based products. All this information is available, however often not accessible for layman citizen.

The European project BioCannDo, is coordinated by FNR and will prepare and implement a joint communicational undertaking to provide the right information to citizens presented in key messages using the right tone and the right time through the right channels of communication.

Together with various stakeholders the project will develop key messages which cover the functionality and sustainability of bio-based products and which are easy to understand by the broad public. BioCannDo will engage a European network of stakeholders, initiatives and projects dealing with the communication of issues related to the bioeconomy. It will strive for synergies for existing tools and materials and develop missing communication formats and educational materials to communicate topics of the bioeconomy and bio-based products to European citizens.

The 3 year project started at 1 October 2016.

Further information: international.fnr.de/eu-activities/european-projects/biocanndo/

ERA-Net Cofund on Biotechnologies - ERA CoBioTech

The ERA-Net “Cofund on BioTechnologies” (CoBioTech) aims to better use synergies between current mechanisms of biotechnology research funding in Europe, to highlight the benefits of a bio-based economy for society, and to thus maintain and strengthen Europe’s global lead in modern biotechnology. The co-funded call will focus on application-oriented research in: a) Synthetic biology approaches to design and construct new biological parts, devices and systems b) Systems biology approaches to metabolic engineering and optimisation of biological processes c) Identification and use of the metabolic potentials of genomic data d) Chemical and biotechnological approaches to transform bio-based molecules into molecules with high added value. Bundling three predecessor ERA-Nets in the area of biotechnology, CoBioTech significantly increases public funding (call volume ~ 30 Mio €), intensifies collaboration across relevant sectors and countries, and thus - advances RD&I in industrial biotechnology - establishes systems and synthetic biology as technology drivers in applied biotechnology, and - enhances the potential for exploitation through active industry involvement. Necessary steps and measures to achieve these goals will be encompassed in a joint Strategic Agenda. With a “European Biotechnology Hub”, CoBioTech realises an entirely new concept, reaching out to key actors and stakeholders from multiple biotechnology-related areas in order to align different European strategic instruments with the goals of the KET biotechnology programme under Horizon 2020 and to increase public awareness of biotechnology for industrial uses. CoBioTech will implement additional funding activities without EC co-funding, which will advance RD&I in industrial biotechnology in line with the Strategic Agenda and the outcomes of the "European Biotechnology Hub." CoBioTech thus provides biotechnology stakeholders with tailor-made support regarding information, communication, networking and funding.

Further information: www.submission-cobiotech.eu/lw_resource/datapool/_items/item_59/ERA%20CoBioTech%20Pre-Announcement_A4-single%20pages.pdf

IMI2 - Call 10

The following topics are under consideration for inclusion in IMI2 - Call 10, which is scheduled for launch in late 2016:

• Understanding hypoglycaemia: the underlying mechanisms and addressing clinical determinants as well as consequences for people with diabetes by combining databases from clinical trials
• How big data could support better diagnosis and treatment outcomes for prostate cancer
• Note: topic forms part of the IMI Big Data for Better Outcomes (BD4BO) programme
• Improving the care of patients suffering from acute or chronic pain
  Note: this topic consists of three subtopics:
          A : Using patient reported outcome measures to improve the management of acute and chronic pain (PROMs)
          B : Improving the translatability of pharmacodynamic biomarkers in pain pathways of healthy subjects and preclinical species (BIOM)
          C: Improving translation in chronic pelvic pain (PCC)
• Creation of a pan-European paediatric clinical trials network
• Biomanufacturing 2020: Development of innovative high throughput analytical tools and methods to characterize cell culture fluid during development and commercial cell culture processes
• Unlocking the solute carrier gene-family for effective new therapies
• Enhanced patient voice in medicines lifecycle  - feedback wanted
• Precision medicines approaches in autism spectrum disorders

Further information: www.imi.europa.eu/content/future-topics