Infectious Diseases Catalyst Grants 2024 (Denmark)

Within these thematic areas, the aim is to stimulate Danish research, strengthen international collaborations, and to initiate innovative research projects with exceptional potential for future direct impact on global challenges.

Thematic Research Areas

• Research projects suitable for funding within the call must:
  • Be in scope of at least one of the three thematic research areas outlined below.
  • Be use-inspired. I.e., the research project can have a fundamental scientific focus but must include a potential application towards generating better and needed tools, and/or the scientific rationale, concept, and research direction is driven by the potential use to which the new knowledge will be put.
    • Theme 1: Pathogenic Fungi
      • Invasive fungal infections pose a growing threat to human health and with the rise of antifungal resistance, research and discoveries are needed to develop new and effective prevention, diagnostic, and treatment tools. The pathogenic fungi in scope of this call are the 19 Fungal Priority Pathogens listed by the World Health Organization.
      • Areas of research could be (but are not limited to):
        • Target exploration and validation of novel potential therapeutic targets.
        • Biomarker identification for future potential diagnostic tools.
        • Understanding fungal biology or host-pathogen interactions that provide insights into potential vulnerabilities that could be targeted therapeutically or preventatively.
        • Fungal genomics e.g., understanding how fungal pathogens evolve to cause disease, contribute to speciation, trace gene variation, and identify genomic changes that confer antifungal resistance.
        • Mechanisms of antifungal resistance and improved strategies to mitigate emergence and spread of drug-resistant strains.
        • Enabling tools and technologies such as establishment of assays, strains, or animal models for improved translational efforts.
    • Theme 2: Novel AMR Tools
      • Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the biggest threats to global public health. It constitutes a ‘silent’, ongoing pandemic, estimated to directly cause 1.3 million deaths annually. There is an urgent need for new tools to combat AMR infections, but the existing clinical pipeline is weak and in need of substantial replenishment. The intention of this theme is to provide funding for early and exploratory projects that investigate rationally designed, novel and innovative approaches to prevent, diagnose or treat drug resistant bacterial infections with pathogens listed on the WHO Bacterial Priority Pathogen List, 2024 or the US CDC Antibiotic Resistance Treats Report.
      • Areas of research could be (but are not limited to):
        • Promising new treatment modalities alternative to traditional small-molecule antibiotics (such as phages, monoclonal antibodies, multibodies or nanobodies, targeted protein degradation etc.).
        • Dual-action or dual-modality or novel combination therapies to reduce the likelihood of resistance emerging.
        • Rapid, point-of-care diagnostic tools.
        • Microbiome -exploration, and -interventions to tackle AMR.
    • Theme 3: Harnessing Innate Immunity
      • Innate immunity provides a rapid, ‘front-line’ defence against respiratory pathogens through the recognition of Pathogen-associated Molecular Patterns (PAMPs). Although pathogens can evade innate immunity, one strategy is to boost innate defences using immunostimulatory molecules in situations where future exposure is predicted. This would give individuals an advantage over the pathogen(s) by promoting an early or more efficient innate immune response. The objective of this theme is to better understand how innovative tools can be developed and used to induce innate immunity and broadly counteract respiratory infections.
      • Areas of research must have applicability to more than one respiratory pathogen and can focus on:
        • Better understanding of the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms of immunostimulatory stimuli, and how these translate to broadly protective outcomes.
        • Better understanding of the duration and type of protection, including the interplay between central vs tissue-specific factors, epigenetic signatures, and metabolic pathways.
        • Identification and characterization of novel therapeutic targets and/or novel immunomodulators for the induction of broadly protective responses.

Funding Information

• The total grant budget is DKK 50 million, which can be awarded over up to three years (2024-2026), meaning that this call will recur in 2025 and potentially in 2026. The individual grants awarded can have one of two different granting frameworks:
  • For each grant where there is only one applicant based in Denmark, up to DKK 3 million can be awarded, with a grant period of up to 3 years.
  • For each grant where there is a Danish main applicant and a co-applicant based abroad, up to DKK 6 million can be awarded, with a grant period of up to 3 years.

Eligible Funding

• Applicants may apply for funding for the following types of expenses:
  • Salary of people employed by or involved in the project such as postdocs, PhD students, researchers, staff scientists, consultants, technicians, etc.
  • If required by the foreign institution of the co-applicant, and confirmed in the support letter, the co-applicant can include a reasonable fraction of their salary based on their time commitment to the project stated in the application budget.
  • Tuition fee for Ph.D. students.
  • Travel expenses in relation to the project, e.g. collaboration meetings, conference and workshop participation and presentation of research results derived from the project, or other travel expenses that are directly related to the project, e.g. for experiments carried out in other labs for a limited period of time.
  • Open access publication of results originating from the project, as well as open access data sharing and data management.
  • Reasonable equipment required for the project.
  • Consumables and operating expenses: Direct expenses for developing, implementing and operating the project, including materials, access to infrastructure, lab consumables, chemicals, reagents, research animals, analysis services, data collection and storage, etc.
  • Bench fee: Support for individual researchers for the coverage of direct expenses needed to conduct the research project applied for (must be specified in the budget).
  • Administrative expenses: (up to 5% of the applicant’s overall budget and included in the budget) to cover administrative expenses directly related to the project.
• NNF will not award funding for: 
  • commercial activities
  • overhead
  • salary for the main applicant

Eligibility Criteria

• The main applicant must be anchored and have their primary employment and research group at a university, hospital, or other non-profit research institution in Denmark.
• The main applicant must be an established investigator with their own line of research.
• It is encouraged to include one international co-applicant in the project who is anchored and has their primary employment and research group at a university, hospital, or other non-profit research organisation outside of Denmark. If an international co-applicant is included, they must significantly contribute to the scientific advancement of the project and receive a significant part of the funding. Further, it must be clear from the application how the project collaboration is ensured, and the work and budget is distributed.
• The main applicant and, if included, the co-applicant must be employed at the institution they are applying from and must be guaranteed their own salaries for the entire project period.
• Collaboration with for-profit research partners (biotech, industry etc.) is possible, but funding cannot be awarded to for-profit research partner(s), unless they act as subcontractors (e.g., consultants, service providers, vendors, etc.)

Language

• The application and any additional uploads must be written in English.

For more information, visit Novo Nordisk Foundation.