Call budget: € 20 million

Funding level: 100% of eligible costs

Stage 1 Open date: 10 June 2019, Stage 1 Close date: 10 October 2019 Stage 2 Open date: 21 December 2019, Stage 2 Close date: 16 March 2020

Description

Failure to translate research findings into policy and practice impedes research from achieving maximum public health benefit. New products and/or novel clinical interventions (i.e., new drug combinations/new formulations, clinical management algorithms), for poverty-related diseases (PRDs), may not reach the target populations, especially in resource-poor settings such as sub-Saharan Africa, because of challenges in ensuring the delivery and uptake of medical products into clinical practice. Further, barriers to adherence may compromise the effectiveness and public health benefit of new interventions. Therefore, concerted efforts by multiple stakeholders are needed to maximise the use of available, efficacious products and interventions in order to ensure that these innovations achieve their full potential in real-life clinical and community settings.

Scope
The purpose of this call for proposals is to support distinct strategic actions to translate medical interventions of proven efficacy (diagnostics, drugs, vaccines, and microbicides) into routine care. Proposals may include testing of delivery methods to increase population coverage, retention in care and adherence to the intervention. Proposals must focus on PRDs in the scope of the EDCTP2 programme and should leverage major support from other funders. The study(ies), which may be interventional or non-interventional in design and which must take place in sub-Saharan Africa, should be presented in detail and with clear justification as to why this is the appropriate design to provide robust evidence that can lead to policy change at national, regional and/or international level. Proposals must include a landscape analysis of the most important product-related implementation research gaps to justify the importance of the proposed research. Proposals must include a clear, credible plan of the pathway to achieving policy change or uptake within a defined timeline. This could relate to products that are not licensed or not eligible for reimbursement but then the applicants must indicate a credible uptake plan. The EDCTP Association considers that proposals for actions of between 24 and 48 months duration would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately.

Expected impact
Projects funded under this call for proposals should:

• contribute to the achievement of SDG3 ‘Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages’;
• contribute towards the reduction of the burden of PRDs in sub-Saharan Africa;
• contribute to policy change at the national, regional and/or international level.

Eligibility
A proposal/application will only be considered eligible if:

1. its content corresponds, wholly or in part, to the topic/contest description for which it is submitted;
2. it complies with the eligibility conditions for participation set out below, depending on the type of action:
   • At least three legal entities. Two of the legal entities shall be established in two different Participating States (European Partner States)* and one of the legal entities must be established in a sub-Saharan African** country. All three legal entities must be independent of each other;
   • ‘Sole participants’ formed by several legal entities (e.g. European Research Infrastructure Consortia, European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation, central purchasing bodies) are eligible if the above-mentioned minimum conditions are satisfied by the legal entities forming together the sole participant.

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Notes

*The Participating States (European Partner States) are Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

**The following sub-Saharan African countries: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo (Democratic People’s Republic), Congo (Republic), Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.