Joint Calls

Funding transnational collaborative research through yearly joint transnational calls is one of the major objectives of E-Rare. This is the most important and effective joint activity to enhance the cooperation between European scientists working on rare diseases and thus reducing the fragmentation of research in this field.

Two “general” joint calls (2011 and 2013) with broad and open topics are foreseen to allow researchers to choose their projects based on state of the art and research demand for the specific disease. This bottom-up approach is seen as the most suited to cluster the most competitive national research groups in common projects, and effectively opens the national programmes for more international collaboration.

Two "focused" joint calls (2012 and 2014) are also planned to address themes of rare diseases research that need special attention. The calls are designed to promote the multidisciplinarity necessary for progressing towards a translational research approach, thus serving the patients suffering from rare diseases. The resulting synergies will ensure a higher cost-effectiveness of the limited funding.