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Public funding agencies in Germany, Luxembourg, Poland, Switzerland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Austria are pooling resources to promote international cooperation in research to tackle COVID-19. Researchers in these countries can now apply for fast-track funding for cross-border projects. This applies for both bilateral and trilateral projects.
“International collaboration is essential in science, as the coronavirus crisis once again clearly shows. Together with our European partners, we want to make it easier for researchers to engage in transnational research and bring new insights to light,” said Klement Tockner, president of the Austrian Science Fund.
The initial call for proposals from the Austrian Research Fund is listed in the Science|Business COVID-19 research funding database. The fast track call is open to proposals that deal with the prevention, early detection, containment, causes and effects of epidemics and pandemics. Application deadline: 30 September.
The EU has called on member states to ramp up COVID-19 diagnostic capacity in hospitals, care centres and special test facilities to ease the continent’s exit from stringent lockdowns.
In a 16-page exit strategy published on Wednesday, the European Commission warned member states to align testing methodologies in order to achieve comparable results.
Special virus-tracing mobile apps may also be used by governments, but they should be voluntary for the public.
“When using tracing apps, users should remain in control of their data,” the commission says.
Researchers at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology have mailed coronavirus self-test kits to 1,000 random addresses across Stockholm to collect blood samples, so they can analyse how many residents of the city have developed antibodies to COVID-19, and potentially gained immunity to the disease. The project also aims to assess how home testing for the novel coronavirus could help the authorities fight the pandemic, without burdening the health system with a huge number of people presenting for tests. The samples are submitted anonymously, meaning participants will not be told their results. However, it hoped that if successful, testing will be scaled up, enabling named person testing to be carried out.
Researchers at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology have mailed coronavirus self-test kits to 1,000 random addresses across Stockholm to collect blood samples, so they can analyse how many residents of the city have developed antibodies to COVID-19, and potentially gained immunity to the disease. The project also aims to assess how home testing for the novel coronavirus could help the authorities fight the pandemic, without burdening the health system with a huge number of people presenting for tests. The samples are submitted anonymously, meaning participants will not be told their results. However, it hoped that if successful, testing will be scaled up, enabling named person testing to be carried out.
The European Innovation Council is organising an ePitching session at which over 20 different public and private health sector procurement bodies, from 14 EU member states and several non-EU countries, will present their most pressing needs and issues they are facing in dealing with COVID-19. Selected EIC-backed SMEs will then get the chance to pitch, making the case for how their products and services can meet these needs. There will be two ePitching sessions, one on medical devices, supply chain and logistics management, and a second on potential therapies and antimicrobial drugs. Following that, there will be chance to have one-on-one discussions. SMEs have until 17 April to apply to pitch their products.
The AMable consortium, funded by Horizon 2020 to promote uptake of 3D printing, has launched a call for ideas on how to apply the technology to fill gaps in the supply of COVID-19-related equipment. The call is open to any individual or company in the EU, or country linked to the Horizon 2020 programme. Total funding is €350,000. Application deadline: 1st October.
A new project funded by Spain’s Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) is using advanced computing and data science techniques to see if the lockdown measures taken to stop the spread of COVID-19 are being effective. The results will be used to hone social distancing measures as controls on movement are reduced, and in future outbreaks of this disease or others.
A multidisciplinary team from computing, demography and physics is analysing a massive volume of high-resolution data from telephone operators and satellite navigation companies, to understand how mobility and social contacts have changed since the lockdown began. This is one of the 12 projects CSIC has launched to study the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
These data will be fed into computational models that are being developed to study the different scenarios for lifting control measures, both by sector and by geographical area
The information and models that are developed during this research will be made publicly available for future use, following an open data model.
The VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is developing a COVID-19 test based on the detection of viral antigens in nasopharyngeal samples. Capable of delivering results within 15 minutes, VTT says the test will cost less than current tests. It is being developed in collaboration with the MeVac Vaccine Research Centre, with samples from COVID-19 patients provided by the HUS Helsinki University Hospital.
With backing from AIB bank, Trinity College Dublin has announced a COVID-19 research collaboration between Trinity’s Translational Medicine Institute and the Clinical Research Facility at St James’s Hospital, Dublin. The project will involve scientists and immunologists working on basic and applied research, and infectious disease consultants, immunologists, respiratory disease physicians and intensive care specialists working with COVID-19 patients. AIB is putting €2.4 million into the hub, which aims to discover drugs and vaccines against the coronavirus, and will work on commercial antibody tests and investigating if recovered COVID-19 patients are immune to further infection with the virus.
The Digital Innovation Hubs in Healthcare Robotics project, which is funded through Horizon 2020, has published a call for proposals that apply robotics to diagnostics, interventions, rehabilitation, and supporting patients and healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 crisis. The call is open to SMEs and larger companies. The overall budget will be €1 million, with up to €300,000 for each project. Application deadline: 17 April.
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