The increased mobility of populations leads to both new opportunities and challenges in global health. This calls for cross-border cooperation between research institutions, governments and organizations to ensure continued and improved healthcare for everyone regardless of their status and current geographical location.
To set in motion such cooperation between private foundations, the Novo Nordisk Foundation has joined forces with three other private European foundations in launching a new joint funding call promoting research on the effects of mobility within global medicine and health research. The three other foundations are the “la Caixa” Foundation (Spain), Wellcome (United Kingdom) and the Volkswagen Foundation (Germany).
“We are very happy to announce this joint research funding call, in which we get the opportunity to focus on some crucial challenges within global and cross-border medicine. With this call, we want to give global research groups the chance to disrupt some of the established preconceptions in this field. We expect some innovative, cross-disciplinary projects that will address issues and challenges in an important area that does not otherwise receive much attention in the current funding calls across Europe. By joining forces with the three other foundations, we expect to be able to fund multiple projects that will provide knowledge and insights and will impact the lives of many people beyond the funding period,” says Niels-Henrik von Holstein-Rathlou, Head of Biomedicine and Health Research, Novo Nordisk Foundation.
Promoting interdisciplinarity and breaking classical North–South divides
The aim of the funding call is to promote multi-perspective research on how global mobility influences the general health, various determinants of health and the well-being of local and mobile populations and how to address the effects of mobility in a sustainable way.
Breaking barriers between not only disciplines but also geographical distances is a key element in the call. The call invites researchers from low- and middle-income countries as well as high-income countries to create and mobilize research partnerships to address the mobility-related global health issues and challenges that applicants identify as crucial. The suggested collaborative projects should therefore not only bridge research disciplines but also aim towards breaking classical North–South divides through mutual learning and equity.
There are two funding stages in the application procedure. A total of up to €750,000 (up to €50,000 per grant) will be available for preparatory grants in stage 1, and a total of up to €9 million (up to €1.5 million per grant) will be available for project grants in stage 2. Each grant will be funded by the foundation in the country in which the main applicant is located.
The joint call opens for applications on 20 January and is administered by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The joint call is part of an international funding initiative called Global Issues – Integrating Different Perspectives, initiated by the Volkswagen Foundation in 2018.
Further information
Christian Mostrup Scheel, Senior Press Officer, phone: +45 3067 4805, [email protected]
