New Joint Programming Initiative call Biomarkers for Nutrition and Health (BioNH)

ZonMw announces that the Joint Programming Initiative ‘A Healthy Diet for A Healthy Life’ (JPI HDHL) launched a transnational call for research proposals on Biomarkers in Nutrition and Health (BioNH). Deadline for submissions is June 10, 2014. The total budget for the call is € 5,450,000, from the Netherlands the partner contribution is € 500,000 (+ in kind). It is anticipated that 5 or 6 groups max. will be funded.

Joint transnational research proposals may be submitted by research groups working in universities (or other higher education institutions), non-university public research institutes, hospitals and otherhealth care settings, as well as commercial companies, in particular small and medium-size enterprises. Eligible institutions in the Netherland are universities and non-university research institutes/ organisations located in the Netherlands. Each consortium must involve groups from at least three different countries of the funding organisations participating in this call: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and Switzerland.

The aim of BioNH is to bring together researchers from different disciplines to collaborate and create common databases for further analysis, to establish a critical mass in this strategic research area via excellent science, research facilities sharing, training of young scientists and novel professional profiles development; to facilitate prospective studies at a pan-European level, sharing standardized and innovative measures for biomarkers in Nutrition and Health.

The main objective of the BioNH call is to support interdisciplinary research and innovative approaches for the validation of Biomarkers and the investigation of intake/exposure and nutritional status of biomarkers within Nutrition and Health. This will be a key step in the implementation of the JPI HDHL strategic research agenda. The BioNH call in particular aims to define and harmonise the methodology necessary to prove the nutritional effects in the development of foods.

The JPI HDHL aims to coordinate research on the impact of diet and lifestyles on health, significantly contributing to the construction of a fully operational European Research Area for the prevention of diet-related diseases and strengthening the leadership and competitiveness of research activities in this field.