The aim of the call is to enable scientists in different countries to build an effective collaboration on a common interdisciplinary research project based on complementarities and sharing of expertise, with a clear translational research approach. Projects shall involve a group of rare diseases or a single rare disease following the European definition i.e. a disease affecting not more than five in 10.000 persons in the European Community, EC associated states and Canada.

The specific objective of this call is to promote research projects focusing on the pre-clinical development of therapeutic approaches in suitable existing animal or cell models.

Deadline for proposal pre-registration: February 1, 2017

Deadline for proposal submission: June 2nd, 2017

More information here

COST is the longest-running European framework supporting trans-national cooperation among researchers, engineers and scholars across Europe.

You can submit your COST Action proposal at any time throughout the year via the new e-COST online submission tool. The next Collection Date is set for December 7, 2016. 

There will be a next collection date in September 2017.

All information on COST Action here

Call documents and guidelines to submit a proposal here

All information on the calls for Innovative Training Networks available here

Deadline: January 10th 2017

The objective of the consultation is to collect information from a wide audience on different aspects of Horizon 2020 implementation. The results of this consultation will feed into the report on the interim evaluation of Horizon 2020, will help the European Commission to improve the implementation of Horizon 2020 and will set the scene for the future discussions on the next EU research and innovation funding post-2020.

Answer to the consultation here 

Deadline: January 15th 2017

The European Commission (DG Health) has launched a new call for proposals for a pilot project in the area of Rare Diseases. This will be founded by the European 3rd Health Programme.

PP-2-1-2016 - Pilot project — Establishing a Registry of Rare Congenital Malformations (as part of the Rare Diseases Registry), drawing on the structure, organization and experience of the Registry of Congenital Malformations

Opening: October 27th 2016
Deadline: January 31st 2017
Call document: here 
More information and link for submission here

Call identifier: ERC-2017-CoG

Deadline: February, 9th 2017

ERC Consolidator Grants are designed to support excellent Principal Investigators at the career stage at which they may still be consolidating their own independent research team or programme. Applicant Principal Investigators must demonstrate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their scientific proposal. Principal Investigator shall have been awarded his or her first PhD > 7 and ≤ 12 years prior to 1 January 2017. 

More information in the ERC 2017 Work Programme (pp. 23-24 on CoG)

Being nearly at the half-way point of the 3rd Health Programme which runs from 2014 to 2020, the Commission would like to evaluate whether it is meeting its objectives and whether there is room for improvement.

Answer here to the EU Consultation on the 3rd European Health Programme ! It is open to any interested parties in order to gather views and opinions on:

• The objectives and priorities of the 3HP, and the extent to which these are appropriate and in line with health needs in the EU
• The way the 3HP is implemented, and the extent to which this is effective and efficient
• The overall added value and usefulness of the 3HP

More info here

If you follow a cohort of patients with FMD, and are willing to contribute to the European FMD registry and join a network of specialists interested by the clinical and basic aspects of the disease, please contact us (FMD-saintluc@uclouvain.be).

Read the call here

Topic Identification:  SC1-HCO-07-2017

Stay tuned: here

Topic identifier: SC1-HCO-03-2017
Types of action: ERA-NET-Cofund ERA-NET Cofund

More information here

Topic identifier: SC1-PM-03-2017
Types of action: RIA Research and Innovation action

Deadline: 11 April 2017

The aim of this research should be to apply genomics and/or other –omics and/or other high-throughput approaches for the molecular characterisation of rare diseases in view of developing molecular diagnoses for a large number of undiagnosed rare diseases. 

More information here

Topic identifier: SC1-HCO-08-2017
Types of action: CSA Coordination and support action

More information and call documents here

Topic identifier: SC1-PM-08-2017
Types of action: RIA Research and Innovation action

Deadline: April 11th 2017

Support will be provided to clinical trials on substances where orphan designation has been given by the European Commission, where the proposed clinical trial design takes into account recommendations from protocol assistance given by the European Medicines Agency, and where a clear patient recruitment strategy is presented. 

More information and call documents here

Topic identifier: SC1-PM-02-2017
Types of action: RIA Research and Innovation action

Deadline: April 11th 2017

More information and call documents: here

Topic identifier: SC1-PM-10-2017
Types of action: RIA Research and Innovation action

Deadline: April 11th 2017

More information and call documents here

Topic identifier: SC1-PM-20-2017
Types of action: RIA Research and Innovation action

Deadline: April 11th 2017

More information and call documents here

Call identifier: ERC-2017-AdG

ERC Advanced Grant Principal Investigators are expected to be active researchers and to have a track record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years which must be presented in the application. There is little prospect of an application succeeding in the absence of such a record, which identifies investigators as exceptional leaders in terms of originality and significance of their research contributions.

More information in the ERC Work Programme 2017 (pp. 25-28 on AdG)