[ Joint Programme on Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) | Research funding ]

The Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) is the largest global research initiative aimed at tackling the challenge of neurodegenerative diseases. This Joint Programme is funded by the participating countries’ funding agencies, including the SNSF for Switzerland.
For the 2021 call, the JPND initiative has announced a EUR 19 M transnational call for ambitious, innovative, multinational and multidisciplinary collaborative research projects with a view to promoting research aimed at the detection, measurement and understanding of early disease indicators related to neurodegenerative diseases, with potential for the development of new diagnostics or interventions. The SNSF has allocated CHF 600’000 for Swiss-based grantees from 2 research groups.
Proposals must focus on one or several of the following
Neurodegenerative diseases:

• Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias,
• Parkinson’s disease and PD-related disorders,
• Prion diseases,
• Motor neuron diseases,
• Spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA),
• Huntington’s disease,
• Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).

• Demonstrating the relationship between early neurodegenerative processes and physiological disturbances, e.g. by analyzing existing cohorts and longitudinal data.
• Applying cutting-edge methods or technologies to improve the detection of early symptoms, e.g. by establishing innovative biomarkers and increasing the sensitivity, specificity and/or the robustness of the readouts.
• Human or animal studies to decipher the neurodegeneration-derived processes causing early disease-specific signatures, e.g. on the neuropathological, cellular, synaptic, metabolic or inflammatory level. The use of well-characterised human cohorts’ data is encouraged.
• Using digital technologies to link recognizable symptoms to physiological changes associated to neurodegeneration, e.g. by combining clinical, neurophysiological, biochemical, imaging and psychological data.
• Relating prognostic signs of disease with real-life measurement of physiological disturbances using home-monitoring and/or wearable devices, including wireless sensors for patient monitoring.

• International consortia composed of 3-6 researchers from at least 3 different participating countries. Partners from other countries can be part of the consortium, but must secure their own funding. Applicants can be based at universities (or other higher education institutions), non-university public or private research institutes, hospitals and other health and social care settings, as well as commercial companies, in particular SMEs. Collaborations with companies from outside the traditional medical sector (e.g. computing, artificial intelligence) are welcome. Eligibility rules depend on the national funding agencies.

• Swiss-based applicants: must be eligible for SNSF Project Funding (see EPFL Instructions for SNSF Project Funding) and cannot participate in more than one proposal per call. The SNSF exclusively funds research conducted for non-commercial purposes. Please contact [email protected] to verify your eligibility for the call. In case of several overlapping SNSF projects, all projects must significantly distinguish themselves from each other.  

• Deadline for pre-proposals: 2 March 2021 at 15:00 CET.
• Deadline for full proposals: 29 June 2021 at 15:00 CET.