FWO - EP PerMed: Joint Transnational Call 'CARMEN2026'

Research

What?

The European Partnership for Personalised Medicine (EP PerMed) aims to improve future healthcare for all citizens through personalised therapy, diagnosis and prevention.

The EP PerMed funding organisations have agreed to launch the joint transnational call 2026 (JTC2026) “Personalised Medicine for CARdiovascular, MEtabolic, and kidNey diseases” (acro-nym: CARMEN2026).

With this JTC, EP PerMed will fund research projects in human health on innovative PM strategies for patients with cardiovascular, metabolic or kidney diseases. Research projects may focus on a single disease or explore these conditions in combination. Proposals should address one or more of the following aspects:

• Development and validation of innovative personalised therapeutic approaches for cardiovascular, metabolic or kidney diseases through testing in relevant pre-clinical models;
• Identification and validation of molecular markers/signatures or cutting-edge technologies to monitor treatment response in patients with cardiovascular, metabolic or kidney diseases in order to tailor treatment pathways;
• Identification and validation of stratifying molecular markers/signatures or stratifying diagnostic technologies for early disease risk prediction and prevention of disease worsening or comorbidities in patients with cardiovascular, metabolic or kidney diseases, thereby delaying the progression to cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome.

Exclusion: Research focussing only on drug-induced cardiac, metabolic or kidney toxicity is out of scope. While clinical studies (exploratory/ proof-of-concept/ early-stage or sub-studies) may be funded under this call, larger clinical trials are beyond its scope.

You can find more information about the aim/scope of the call on page 6 - 10 of the call text.

Funding will come via FWO through the fundamental (FO) or Strategic Basic Research (SBO) channel. The type and scope of the proposed research project will determine the choice of funding channel for the research performed within Flanders (more fundamental in nature, or more aimed at economical/societal valorisation). Non-compliance with the specific requirements per funding channel might lead to non-eligibility.

The FWO can support 2 projects for a 36 months duration, with an available maximum applicable budget of 350,000 EUR (overhead included) per project/consortium.  

Who?

Projects require a truly cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary collaboration, including stakeholders from pre-clinical and clinical research, bioinformatics, Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects (ELSA) research, implementation research, health economics research, actors from the public and private sector, and end-users (or experts that can support research on the impact for end-users).
Consortia funded in this EP PerMed call are required to be interdisciplinary and trans-sectoral. Research teams forming a consortium should include investigators from a broad range of relevant scientific disciplines, research fields or sectors, and bring together the necessary expertise to achieve the objectives as well as expected impact of the research proposed.

Involving patients and citizens representatives in research projects from the onset can improve quality and relevance.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to integrate sex and gender considerations, as well as underrepresented populations (e.g. ethnic minorities), or underrepresented patient sub-groups, e.g. children or elderly, as well as social components, e.g. different economic, educational backgrounds, in proposals submitted to the EP PerMed call. This includes not only the sex distribution of research teams and the distribution of roles in a consortium (gender balance), but also the inclusion of sex or gender research per-se.

Researchers can only participate within 2 different international consortia in this call.

The PI, for each of the participating institutions applying for FWO funds, must hold an appointment that fully covers the duration of the research project.

Application?

2-step submission:
Deadline pre-proposal: 10 February, 2026 (14:00) 
One joint proposal document must be submitted to the JCS by the project coordinator by uploading it via the electronic submission system (https://ptoutline.eu/app/eppermed2026). The proposals must be written in English, must follow the template form in terms of overall size and section page and character limits, and must strictly adhere to the “Guidelines for Applicants”. The pre-proposal form can be downloaded from the EP PerMed website.

The FWO requires pre-registration on a national/regional level as well by filling in an application form on the FWO e-portal before the deadline for submission of the pre-proposals (10 February 2026, 14:00). When you're logged on to the e-portal, you can find it under "Researcher".
It is strongly recommended to contact the FWO administration about your pre-registration at the latest one week before submission in order to verify admissibility.

For the fundamental funding channel the respective regulation applies. For the SBO channel the SBO regulation has to be taken into account: these imply projects with a primarily economic and/or societal finality, of which ‘valorisation’ is a key - and mandatory - aspect.

Given the pre-proposal already has to be OK in terms of budget, OBI has an internal deadline to check your proposal.
Internal deadline: 3 February 2026

In case the consortium includes more than one partner requesting funding from FWO, a single online form should be submitted containing all relevant information from the different Flemish partners.

around 5 May 2026: communication of the results and invitation for full proposal
Deadline submission full proposal: 9 June 2026, 14:00
Rebuttal stage: Mid/end of August 2026
Expected for October 2026: communication of the funding decisions
End of 2026, beginning of 2027: expected start of the project (subject to national procedures)

More information?

You can find more information, like the call text, the Guidelines for Applicants, the submission platform and the proposal application form on the EP PerMed partnership website.

Concerning the FWO regulations, you can consult the FWO website:
for the fundamental funding channel
for the SBO channel

The partnership EP PerMed organises a JTC2026 information day: 16 December 2025.

More information and the registration button can be found here.

Please contact research@uhasselt.be if you want to apply.

Deadline intern

03.02.2026, 10.02.2026

Contact Hasselt University?

E-mail sarah.szyr@uhasselt.be

Tel. +3211269052