Dear all,
I'm happy to say that we successfully submitted the proposal. Since the pdf is relatively large and can't be reduced, I added it to our (now empty) dropbox; otherwise, you can download it from the participant portal or ask me to email it to you.
Thanks a lot for the great effort, also on behalf of Xavier! It was fun working together with you, and we appreciated your willingness to collaborate on this proposal preparation.
I hope to see you at the kick-off meeting in Barcelona! :-)
Veronica
Veronica A. Raker, Ph.D.
Scientific Project Manager
International and Scientific Affairs
Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG)
Dear all,
We need to fill in the contact information in the EC participant portal, if you haven't already done this; we willl contact you to get the information that's needed for it (we can't submit our proposal until this has been filled out). My colleague Sonja Reiland will be helping us with this (in cc), so please help her to facilitate this asap!
thanks
Veronica
Dear all,
I attended the Gender Summit 2014 this week. Funnily, there was a very enlightening talk by J. Ramsey (from S. Bahn's group) about sex differences in biomarkers of physiatrics disorders. Overall, in 3 disorders, they found 1 with no sex difference in the biomarkers, 1 with biomarkers that were ONLY accurate for men, and 1 with male-specific and female-specific biomarkers. Based on this, I would strongly suggest that our default hypothesis should be to assume that there will be sex differences in the biomarkers (and we can then test to see if the markers are the same for both sexes). (I'm attaching one ms from them here).
If you agree with this, we should then include this hypothesis everywhere into the proposal structure, including the WP descriptions.
There is also an interesting website that gives examples and guidelines about how to include gender and sex into STEM science, in case you are interested:
http://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/
best,
Veronica
Dear all,
We would now like to begin the stage 2 proposal preparation for the DecOCD project. To start with, I would like to ask you to:
1. respond to the questions below with YES or NO by email (necessary for us to have this answer documented). The background info about eligibility is pasted below the questions.
2. by 6 June: Fill out the Participant info doc for yourself, either directly in the Dropbox (in the "partner info" folder) or in the attached file (and return it to me by email).
Thanks a lot. Feel free to ask if you have any questions.
best wishes,
Veronica
ps of the 360 proposals for our call, 170 went through (attached)…approximately 5% will be funded. So, our proposal will have to be "beyond excellent" (to use the EC wording!).
YES/NO questions:
1. are you fully eligible in accordance with the criteria set out in the specific call for proposals?
2. do you have the financial and operational capacity to carry out the proposed action?
* REGULATION (EU) No 1290/2013
Article 10
Eligibility for funding
1. The following participants are eligible for funding from the Union:
1. (a) any legal entity established in a Member State or associated country, or created under Union law;
2. (b) any international European interest organisation;
3. (c) any legal entity established in a third country identified in the work programme.
2. In the case of a participating international organization or in the case of a participating legal entity established in a third country, neither of which are eligible for funding according to paragraph 1, funding from the Union may be granted provided that at least one of the following conditions is fulfilled:
1. (a) the participation is deemed essential for carrying out the action by the Commission or the relevant funding body;
2. (b) such funding is provided for under a bilateral scientific and technological agreement or any other arrangement between
3. the Union and the international organisation or, for entities established in third countries, the country in which the legal entity is established.
[cid:7e37cc61-c2f4-4ae5-b378-8d26c54119be@crg.es]
Dear all,
Please find attached the final version that is now within the page limit.
It would be great if you could go through it one last time for any last-minute changes that you see. (Just email me back your version). We will make the final submission on Monday.
have a good weekend,
Veronica
Dear all,
We would like to ask you to take a final look at the DecOCD proposal, which we would like to submit tomorrow afternoon.
Please keep in mind that the proposal should be highly specific for the call PHC1.i (copied below); in fact, the more we can use their exact wording, the better for us. For instance, this call doesn't ask for biomarker identification (while others do), but rather asks for risk determinant identification… Also remember that scientific excellence and impact have equal weighting for the first round.
If possible, please make your changes directly to the doc in the dropbox (with change tracking). I will deal with any/all conflicted copies. If you prefer to work offline, I'm attaching a word doc that you can work on and then send back to Xavier and me.
We will incorporate all changes that we receive by tomorrow morning (13:00), after which we will submit.
Thanks!
best wishes,
Veronica
Call wording: PHC1
Understanding health, ageing and disease
H2020-PHC-2014/2015
PHC 1 – 2014: Understanding health, ageing and disease: determinants, risk factors and pathways
Specific challenge: The development and preservation of good health, and the occurrence and evolution of common diseases and disabilities result from varying degrees of interaction between the genetic make-up of individual human beings and behavioural, environmental (including endocrine disruptors), occupational, nutritional and other modifiable lifestyle factors. This applies from the earliest stages of development throughout life.
Understanding these factors, their interactions and the extent to which they contribute to health preservation and/or to disease development is important for the development of preventive and therapeutic measures supporting good health, prolonged active independence and a productive working life, not least in the context of changing demographic patterns and the ageing of the European population. In particular, proposals should contribute to improving risk identification and validation, and will allow better diagnosis, risk-based prevention strategies and policies.
Scope:
i. The identification of health trends and determinants, their validation, and the validation of risk factors for disease and disability, through the generation, integration and validation of data derived from relevant disciplines (e.g. molecular, behavioural, nutritional, clinical, social and environmental epidemiology; exposure sciences; genetics, epigenetics, etc.). This should involve the exploitation of existing cohorts and longitudinal studies and the assessment of the necessity to establish new ones, as well as where relevant, the valorisation of knowledge gained from population-based bio-banks.
Sex and gender differences should be taken into account.
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 4 and 6 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.
Expected impact:
Proposals should provide a better understanding of the combined effects of factors causing health and disease, with the knowledge generated underpinning the future development of evidence based prevention, diagnostic, therapeutic and other strategies.
This should provide evidence for risk identification, underpinning future preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic strategies and policies.
