Getting funded from the EU:What are the critical points in applications

from the applicant’s point of view

European Programmes Conference Week6 December 2016

Nicosia, CyprusAristidis Charonis MD PhD

Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens

Funding from EU

Details can be found athttp://www.welcomeurope.com/list-european-funds.html

Specific programs of interest

HORIZON 2020 (79 billion euros)Research, development and innovation

ERASMUS PLUS (14,8 billion euros)Teaching and training

Evaluation criteria for most proposals

• Α. Scientific Excellence

• Β. Implementation

• C. Impact

So, what is important?

• To know the literature

• To write in clear and understandable ways, keeping in mind that the reviewers are not always (in fact they seldom are) experts in your field

• To use color diagrams in order to convey your information to the reviewers

• To highlight the state-of-the-art technology to be used

• To demonstrate the feasibility by stressing the expertise of you and your partners

• To underline the originality/novelty of your proposal

• Participation of the private sector

• RIS3

RIS3

Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3)

http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/documents/20182/110926/MPalazuelos_KETs_Agrofood_11042013.pdf/76423def-eb56-4fa4-bf14-c615727a22cb

RIS3 is based on 4 Cs +

1. * Competitive advantage

2. * Choices: Policy choices (tough ones, scientific excellence)

3. * Critical mass of resources & talent

4. * Collaborative Leadership

5. +…Common sense = Not about re-inventing the wheel.

RIS3 and economic development

RIS3 focuses economic development efforts and investments on each region’s relative strengths, exploiting its economic opportunities and emerging trends, and taking action to boost its economic growth

By focusing on what gives a region its greatest competitive potential, smart specialisation helps position the region in specific global markets/niches and international value chains

RIS3 can ensure that research and innovation resources reach critical mass, i.e. sufficient momentum to become self-sustaining, or critical potential, supporting them through targeted action to boost human resources and knowledge infrastructure.

RIS3 from European RegionsParticipating countries and regions:

http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/s3-platform-registered-

regions

Cyprus proposal:

http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/documents/20182/89368/

CYPRUS-FIN.pdf/e121f421-bdb3-48b8-9744-

2e6a95e01ab9

Priorities in 6 areas: tourism, energy, agriculture,

construction industry, transportation, health

In health: e-health, prognosis - prevention and treatment of

diseases, health pharmaceutical industry

Provide an examplefocused on Cyrpus

What will follow is an example in the field of priority health, in the sub-category of diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases:

basic research in Nephrology

There may be many other fields worth focusing on, in the context of RIS3

The crucial aspect is the existing excellence, critical mass and the collaborative possibilities

Why select basic research in Nephrology

• Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is an extremely frequent condition (10-13% of the adult population)

• In most early stages it goes asymptomatic

• It compromises life quality at later stages and leads to a high frequency of cardiac dysfunction

• If detected, there are ways to slow the progression

• The society has to benefit both financially and socially by early diagnosis and treatment of Chronic Kidney Disease.

HEALTHY AGEING IS AMONG THE TOP PRIORITIES OF EU

The advantage in Cyprus-1

• A leader in the field, Professor of Genetics Constantinos Deltas (many high profile publications, invitation to International meetings, participation in European Programs)

• A large number of Ph.D.s and Postdoctoral Fellows trained in his lab; some of them now hold faculty positions

• An extensive network of distinguished Nephrologists primarily in Cyprus and in Greece, providing samples for some aspect of the studies. Among them Dr. Eleni Frangou, a nephrologist with deep understanding of basic research

The advantage in Cyprus-2

• In order to be able to reliably perform experiments and generate data on human material, it is imperative to collaborate with a biobank

• Biobanking is one of the top priorities in European Research and a Paneuropean Biobanking infrastructure is now been developed

• Initial work has been carried on by the BBMRI consortium; it has now evolved to the BBMRI-ERIC, with central offices in Gratz, Austria

• Cyprus follows the developments of this European Infrastructure and the emphasis on sample collection is among other areas in kidney material

System Biology approaches to CKD

• CKD is a complex and multifactorial disease (as many other related to aging populations)

• For such diseases, an in-depth mechanistic understanding requires the application of modern technologies and the system biology approaches (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, etc)

• These approaches generate huge amount of information and it is required to have a strong bioinformatic support to extract the useful information

The advantage in Cyprus-3

• There is a recently established bioinformatics group at the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics

• The Head of the group, Dr. George Spyrou, has extensive experience in bioinformatics

BRFAA

• To establish collaborations….

RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

CARDIOVASCULAR NEUROBIOLOGY

Development

Physiology - Pathology

Cellular Death

REGULATION OF GENE EXPRESSION

INFLAMMATION-TISSUE REMODELING

GENETICS OF AGEING

CANCER BIOLOGY

Basic Molecular Mechanisms

Gene Expression Networks

Genetic re-programming

Severe Asthma

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Interstitial Lung Diseases

Renal Failure

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn’s Disease

Mechanisms of carcinogenesis

Novel Markers

Cutting edge methodologies for:

Treatment and diagnosis

Gene Therapy

New drugs

Development

Neurodegenerative Diseases

Memory and Learning

Metabolic Diseases

Diabetes Obesity

Systemic Responses

In C. elegans

Telomeres

Systemic analysis

BIOLOGY OF STRESS

Is a collaboration with BRFAA feasible?

Basic Research in Nephrology is among the areas of focus at BRFAA

---Dr. Tonia Vlahou (kidney and urine proteomics)

---Professor Dimitris Boumpas (lypus nephritis)

---Professor Demetrios Vlahakos (hypertension)

---Dr. Aris Charonis (early markers of CKD)

Dr. Antonia Vlahou

A member of the Center for Systems

Biology at BRFAA

Ph.D. in Biology

Expert in Proteomics

She has been the Principal Investigator in two European programs

2008-2011 COST Action on Kidney and Urine Proteomics

2013-2016 Marie-Curie training program in Urine proteomics

She has participated in many other European and National research

programs

Prof. Dimitris Boumpas

A collaborating member of the Center for

Clinical, Experimental Surgery and

Translational Research at BRFAA

MD PhD

Expert in Immunology and especially in

Lupus Nephritis

He is also Professor of Medicine at the University of Athens Medical

School

He is invited speaker in most conferences worldwide on lupus nephritis

He has served as a member of the panel of reviewers on the European

Research Council

Prof. Demetrios Vlahakos

A collaborating member of the Center for

Clinical, Experimental Surgery and

Translational Research at BRFAA

MD PhD

Expert in Hypertensive Nephrosclerosis

He is also Professor of Medicine at the University of Athens Medical

School

He is invited speaker in many National Conferences on Hypertensive

Nephrosclerosis

He is co-inventor in international patents on anti-hypertensive drugs

Dr. Aris Charonis

A member of the Center for Clinical, Experimental

Surgery and Translational Research at BRFAA

MD PhD

Early markers of renal fibrosis

Participant in many European and National research programs

His group uses proteomics and transcriptomics approaches

He has developed collaborations with two specialists on renal pathology

Drs. Hara Gakiopoulou and George Liapis

GGC techniques

4C-seqHiC

WGSWES

Single cell transcriptome

Single cell transcriptome

will provide important new information

and will allow a more in-depth

understanding of histology

and pathology

Is this realistic?

The award• In the journal Nature Methods (11:1, 2014), the methodology to study the full single cell

genome and transcriptome was awarded the title "method of the year" for 2013. The editorial of the journal hailed this methodology as one revealing the potential to understand biology at the unitary resolution of life.

The benefit• Every cell is unique—it occupies an exclusive position in space and is subject to programmed

and induced changes in gene expression. Yet most RNA sequencing is performed on tissue samples or cell populations, in which biological differences between cells can be obscured by averaging or mistaken for technical noise. Single-cell methods offer a way to dissect this heterogeneity. Single-cell transcriptome profiling can identify biologically relevant differences in cells, even when cells may not be distinguishable by marker genes or cell morphology, and can be used to group cells in an unbiased way.

The challenge• The central challenge of scaling down to the cellular level is capturing such a tiny amount of

template and amplifying it to generate enough material for high-throughput sequencing. Maintaining fidelity and avoiding biases during heavy amplification is not trivial, but doing so is critical to ensuring adequate sequence coverage, accurate quantification and detection of sequence variation.

Novel technologies to be used in basic research in Nephrology

We have the ability to combine whole transcriptome sequencing (Illumina

Nextseq500) with single cell analysis (Fluidigm C1)

In basic research in Nephrology, the combination of these methodologies, when

applied on human material (biopsies from control kidneys and pathological

samples) will lead to a far better understanding of the molecular basis of

renal diseases

Expect to better characterize different cell types and discover new subtypes

(especially in fibroblasts)

Expect to identify specific mutations in renal patients

Expect to study faster transcriptionally active parts of the genome, that we do

not appreciate thus far

Expect to discover novel DNA- and RNA- binding proteins that will become

novel and specific pharmacological targets

Platform C1 from Fluidigm

• The world’s first automated solution for single-cell genomics research continues to break new ground, now offering more capabilities than ever before. C1 lets you prepare single-cell templates for mRNA sequencing, DNA sequencing, epigenetics or miRNA expression. Now you can conduct large-scale whole transcriptome studies to survey heterogeneity and discover novel cell populations. And with our new single-cell mRNA Seq HT workflow, you can reliably isolate and process up to 800 individual cells per run.

Though we know you'll do much more than that.

In order to get there…

Funding

is

required

Is there a relevant call ? No, but …

TOPIC : Twinning

Topic identifier:WIDESPREAD-05-2017

Publication date:14 October 2015

Types of action:CSA Coordination and support action

Planned opening date:single-stage 11 May 2017

Deadline:15 November 2017 17:00:00Time Zone : (Brussels time)

Horizon 2020

Pillar: Spreading excellence and widening participation

Work Programme Year: H2020-2016-2017

Call : H2020-WIDESPREAD-2016-2017

Specific Challenge

The specific challenge is to address networking gaps and deficiencies between the research institutions of the Widening countries and internationally-leading counterparts at EU level.

Driven by the quest for excellence, research intensive institutions tend to collaborate increasingly in closed groups, producing a crowding-out effect for a large number of promising institutions. This is the challenge that a specific Twinning action will try to address

Widening countries

The countries that are ranked below 70% of the EU average of the composite indicator of Research Excellence

Member States: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus,

Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia

Aim of the call

Twinning aims at

significantly strengthening a defined field of research in a university or research organisation from a Widening country by linking it with at least two internationally-leading research institutions in other Member States or Associated Countries

Twinning will:

• Enhance the Science and Technology capacity of the linked institutions with a principal focus on the university or research organisation from the Widening Country

• Help raise the research profile of the institution from the Widening country as well as the research profile of its staff.

Strategy-Activities• Successful Twinning proposals will have to clearly outline the

scientific strategy for stepping up and stimulating scientific excellence and innovation capacity in a defined area of research as well as the scientific quality of the partners involved in the twinning exercise. If relevant, any links with sustainable development objectives are to be outlined.

• Such a strategy should include a comprehensive set of measures to be supported. These should include at least a number of the following: short term staff exchanges; expert visits and short-term on-site or virtual training; workshops; conference attendance; organisation of joint summer school type activities; dissemination and outreach activities.

• In general, costs relating to administration, networking, coordination, training, management, travel costs are acceptable under a Twinning project.

Personnel Costs

Personnel costs ( i.e. salaries) are eligible for personnel of all beneficiaries (from Widening or non-Widening countries),

• regardless of their function (researchers, administration, management),

• regardless of their status at the organizations (permanent or temporary or newly recruited)

• provided that these personnel costs are directly attributed to the eligible activities (non-research)indicated in the Work Programme text

Duration and funding level

The duration of a Twinning project can be up to

3 years.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of EUR 1 million, would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately.

Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting lower amounts.

Expected Impact

• Increased research excellence of the coordinating institution in the particular field of research as a result of the twinning exercise.

• Enhancing the reputation, attractiveness and networking channels of the coordinating institution.

• Improved capability to compete successfully for national, EU and internationally competitive research funding.

Information at

https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/widespread-05-2017.html

From EUROSTAT R&D exenditures per country 2004 and 2014

as percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/R_%26_D_expenditure