[ Volkswagen Stiftung - Global Issues | Research funding on Preventing Pandemics : The role of human-environmental interactions ]

This call is part of a funding framework entitled ‘Global Issues – Integrating Different Perspectives’ which aims to enable international research collaboration and to generate insights on understudied issues of urgent global relevance. ‘Global Issues’ supports and strengthens innovative research in collaboration between researchers and societal stakeholders based in different parts of the world who usually do not join forces.

Society and nature are two intricately interlinked dynamic systems, influencing and modifying each other. Too often, these systems have been looked at separately while their interaction should be in the focus of future research endeavors. The intricacy between both spheres has been highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic which drew the attention to the links between climate change, biodiversity loss and increase of pandemic risk factors.

The key question to be addressed is: How do human and environmental systems interact, and how does this in consequence influence the emergence and spread of disease? Projects under this scheme should focus on highly dynamic areas with intensive human-environmental interactions, i.e. where high biodiversity encounters growing human pressure, like peri-urban areas or agriculture-“nature” margins, and concentrate on wildlife and its transmittable diseases.

Funding may be provided for international, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and symmetric research consortia of three to five researchers post PhD (applicants) from at least three countries working together as equal partners.

Who can apply:

• Swiss-based applicants are eligible for funding, but At least one applicant has to be an employee of a German university or research institution, and two applicants have to be affiliated to academic institutions in non-European Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs according to the World Bank classification) for a total of 4-5 applicants.
• Applicants must hold a PhD (or equivalent qualification) and must be affiliated to a university or research institution. All career levels post-PhD are eligible.

• A relatively even distribution of funding amongst the different partners is expected.
• Eligible costs: personnel, travel costs, scientific visits, consumables, acquisition of data, equipment and other research-related costs + part-time administrative costs, science communication measures + up to EUR 10K for a meeting aimed at preparing the pre-proposal. Does not cover overheads.
• Up to 15 preparatory grants of up to EUR 10.000 may be awarded to shortlisted applicants who will be invited to submit a full proposal (2nd stage application).

• Deadline for pre-proposals: 4 November 2021 by 12 pm CET (noon).
• Shortlisted pre-proposals will be invited to submit a full proposal in March 2022.
• Deadline for full proposals: July 2022
• Interviews: September 2022
• Decision: November 2022