The "la Caixa" Foundation allocates 18 million euros to 25 leading biomedical research projects

The "la Caixa" Foundation provides 18 million euros to 25 projects awarded in the Call for Health Research. Since the beginning of the programme, in 2017, the institution has allocated almost 50 million euros to 75 innovative research projects with a major social impact, in the only call for proposals in the Iberian Peninsula for health research. The large sum allocated to these initiatives makes them great opportunities to carry out cutting-edge and transformative research. The "la Caixa" Foundation will open the fourth edition for the presentation of new projects on October 20. 

Although immersed in times of the coronavirus pandemic, when the "la Caixa" Foundation launched an express call for proposals to promote projects to combat the COVID-19, providing 1.5 million euros to five projects, the entity continues to be firmly committed to pioneering research that will provide solutions to other diseases with high mortality rates in the world.

The high participation in this call, with a total of 600 proposals, demonstrates the need to address initiatives of excellence and, at the same time, to promote and guarantee the success of projects focused on the fight against the diseases causing the greatest impact at a global level, such as cardiovascular, oncological, infectious and neuroscience diseases, as well as biomedical technologies. 

According to the latest data from the WHO, cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the world, followed by oncological diseases. Infectious diseases are the cause of one in three deaths and constitute a very important public and global health problem. In the field of neurological diseases, 50 million people suffer from some form of dementia. 

The "la Caixa" Foundation, through this Call for Health Research, aims to promote research projects by national centres in collaboration with other international centres, with the aim of providing results that benefit health and contribute to people's well-being. 

Of the 25 projects selected, four are in the field of cardiovascular diseases, five in the field of infectious diseases, four focus on oncological diseases, seven in the field of neurosciences and the last five are in the field of technologies that facilitate the development of biomedical sciences. 

As for the origin of the selected projects, 19 come from research centres, universities and hospitals in Spain, and the other 6 from centres in Portugal. Moreover, 14 of them are in consortium with international centres from countries such as Germany, Denmark, the United States, France, Mali, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Korea and Switzerland.

Some projects come from different Spanish regions: Catalonia (9), Madrid (6), Navarre (2), Castile and Leon (1) and Andalusia (1). In addition, there are six initiatives from various centres in Portugal. ​​​​​​​

A total of 600 projects led by researchers from universities and non-profit research centres in Spain and Portugal were submitted to this third call, which closed on February 12, before the start of the expansion of the coronavirus in Spain. 

The selection process chooses the projects with the greatest scientific excellence and the greatest potential and social impact in the field of research, whether basic, clinical or translational, through a system that meets the most demanding standards of quality, impartiality, rigour and transparency. The proposals submitted have been evaluated in two phases, based on remote peer review and interviews with selection committees made up of specialised international experts. In addition to the selected projects, through a collaboration agreement with the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) of the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, three initiatives of Portuguese centres are funded and one thanks to the collaboration with Fundação Luzón. 

-Aid of up to 500,000 euros over three years for projects submitted by a single research organisation. 

-Grants of up to 1,000,000 euros over three years for projects presented by between two and five research organisations.