EP PerMed Joint Transnational Call (JTC) 2026

Announcement for the Joint Transnational Call (JTC) 2026

The European Partnership for Personalised Medicine, EP PerMed (supported by the European Union under Horizon Europe, Grant Agreement N° 101137129), is a platform for joint programming of national and European regional research and innovation supporting activities putting into action “The Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda (SRIA) for Personalised Medicine (2023)”, SRIA for PM (2023), through dedicated research, development and innovation funding.

The EP PerMed funding organisations listed below have agreed to launch the joint transnational call 2026 (JTC2026) “Personalised Medicine for CARdiovascular, MEtabolic, and kidNey diseases” (acro-nym: CARMEN2026), co-funded by the European Union, to fund multinational, innovative research projects in personalised medicine (PM), which should bring together academic, clinical/public health and private research teams, thus enhancing the competitiveness in Europe and beyond in this field. The JTC2026 will be conducted simultaneously by the participating funding organisations in their respective region/country and coordinated centrally by the Joint Call Secretariat (JCS), hosted by the French National Research Agency, (ANR), FRANCE.

The call will be implemented in two stages, i.e. a pre- and a full proposal phase. The available budget for this call is 38 Mio. € (approx.).

Expected timeline of the call

Date	Event
25 November 2025	Publication of the call
16 December 2025	Information day
10 February 2026 (14:00, CET)	Deadline for pre-proposal submission
Expected around 05 May 2026	Communication of the results of the pre-proposal assessment and invitation to the full proposal stage
09 June 2026 (14:00, CEST)	Deadline for full proposal submission
Mid/end of August 2026	Rebuttal stage
Expected for October 2026	Communication of the funding decisions to the applicants
End of 2026, beginning of 2027	Expected project start (according to regional/national funding regulations)

Information Day

An information day introducing the JTC2026 to the research community will be organised on 16 December 2025, 10:00 AM CET.

Electronic submission website

Electronic proposal submission is mandatory on PT-Outline. Research project consortia who intend to submit a transnational proposal should register as soon as possible, by clicking on “Sign up” and follow further instructions.

Contact persons for the Joint Call Secretariat (JCS)

The EP PerMed JCS is hosted by the French National Research Agency (ANR), France:

Monika Frenzel
Phone: +33 01 73 54 83 32
Email: eppermed@agencerecherche.fr

EP PerMed Partnering Tool

The new partnering tool will open soon.

Aims of the Call

The overall objectives of the JTC2026 will be to

• 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 (e.g., human cell cultures, organoids, organs-on-chips, disease-specific animal models, or in silico models).
  • Identification and validation of molecular markers/signatures or cutting-edge technologies (see also point 2 below) to monitor treatment response in patients with cardiovascular, metabolic or kidney diseases in order to tailor treatment pathways. This may include the analysis of the treatment effectiveness or treatment-related (including multi-medication) adverse effects as well as dose optimisation.
  • 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.
• Encourage and enable interdisciplinary collaborations, i.e. multi-actor research by engaging a range of other relevant disciplines such as pre-clinical and clinical research, bioinformatics/health informatics/data research, ELSA research, implementation research or health economics research connected to the proposed research topic, including end-user perspective analysis to support the implementation of the research outcomes into clinical practice.
• Encourage cross-sectorial collaborations, by including the private sector (e.g. SMEs, small and medium-sized enterprises), industry, as well as regulatory/HTA agencies and patient organisations.
• Establish participatory research, i.e. active representation of patients or citizens as part of research projects.

Research projects that combine a personalised medicine approach with care strategies targeting shared biological pathways or common underlying mechanisms of cardiovascular, metabolic and kidney diseases are welcome.

Projects are encouraged to combine the following aspects in their research:

1. Multi-omics data such as genomics, epigenomics, metagenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics data in relation to treatment outcomes. These data may be obtained from health data platforms or infrastructures, including population-level health databases.
2. Cutting-edge technologies such as AI/ML algorithms, next-generation imaging technologies, digital health tools, etc. to enhance early diagnosis, monitor treatment response, optimise therapy effectiveness or dosage, and detect or prevent comorbidities and treatment-related side effects in patients.
3. Information regarding patient medication, dose or compliance, medication efficacy, adverse effects, patient reported outcomes (PRO) or patient preferences.
4. Additional factors such as sex/gender dimension, age, environmental and social background, lifestyle, or nutritional status.

Participatory research should be established in that active representation of patients or citizens is part of research projects. EP PerMed is supporting this approach by providing dedicated funding to organisations representing patients or citizens to participate as partners in proposals submitted to this call. Those organisations could support in designing the research, ensuring that research questions are relevant from the patients’ and citizens’ point of view. They might also support in collecting data for PROs and adverse effects.

Projects funded under this call are furthermore required to include a dedicated work package focussing on the question of the translation or implementation of the research outcomes into clinical practice with a focus on e.g. patient outcome, patient preferences, costs, reimbursement, education (to healthcare providers, patients and citizens), ELSA (ethical, legal and societal aspect) or accessibility at the point of care.

Please refer to the Call Text of the JTC2026 for further information and definitions.

General (Eligibility) Conditions for Application

Joint research proposals may be submitted by applicants belonging to an entity according to the following categories (subject to regional/national funding regulations; see “Guidelines for Applicants”):

1. Academia (research teams working in universities, other higher education institutions) or research institutes;
2. Clinical/public health sector (research teams working in hospitals/public health and/or other healthcare settings and health organisations). Participation of clinicians (e.g. medical doctors, nurses), pharmacists and general practitioners in the research teams is encouraged;
3. Private for-profit (industry) partners, e.g. SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) and private non-profit partners, e.g. foundations, associations or non-governmental organisations.

Consortia submitting applications to this call are strongly encouraged to include partners from different categories (A, B and C) in line with the crosscutting/multidisciplinary nature of the call, where the aim is to include partners at different levels in the value chain. It is also strongly recommended to integrate at least one early-career researcher (ECR) as principal investigator in a consortium (for the EP PerMed definition of ECR, please consult the Annex III of the “Call Text”).

Only transnational projects will be funded. Each consortium must involve at least three partners from three different EU Member States or Associated Countries whose funding organisations participate in the call. Each of these partners must be eligible and request funding from the respective funding organisation. All three legal entities must be independent of each other. The project coordinator must be eligible to be funded by their regional/national participating funding organisation. The project coordinator (i.e. principal investigator and organisation) cannot be changed between the first and second stage.

Max. 2 project partners per consortium can request funding from the same funding organisation. For some funding organisations, the maximum number of eligible partners who can be funded in one project is limited to one (see also “Guidelines for Applicants” for individual funding rules).

No more than one partner on own funds is allowed in the consortia with at least three partners eligible for funding (more indications in the Call Text: “B. Funding recipients”, section 7).

Pre-proposal stage

Maximum number of partners is 6 (no more than 2 partners from the same country including partners on own funds); Maximum number of partners can be 7 if the consortium includes a 3^rd partner of the same country (condition: funding requested from at least 2 different funders of the respective country; applies to only one country per consortium; including partners on own funds).

Widening concept

Consortia are allowed to include in the full proposal phase an additional project partner that is eligible to receive funding from a funding organisation that is underrepresented in the second stage of the call and that agrees to participate in the widening option(a list of underrepresented regions/countries will be provided to coordinators invited to submit full proposals). The rules for the consortium composition need to be respected, i.e. the final number of partners can only sum up to 7 or 8 if there are 3 partners of the same country in a consortium (condition: funding requested from at least 2 different funders of the respective country; applies to only one country per consortium, including partners on own funds).

Exception

To facilitate the integration of organisations representing patients or citizens in consortia, they can be added as additional partners at the pre-proposal stage or full proposal stage. Organisations representing patients or citizens can be added as additional partner(s) either on own funds or by applying for funding, if eligible, from EP PerMed (see page 10 of the call text) or the respective funding organisations. The consortia must follow all of the above-mentioned rules regarding the consortia composition without counting the patient/citizen representing organisations, except for the following rule: within one consortium, no more than 2 partners can request funding from the same funding organisation, including patient/citizen organisations. For some funding organisations, the maximum number of eligible partners who can be funded in one project is one.

Each project partner has to be represented by one principal investigator. Within a joint proposal, each project partner’s principal investigator will be the contact person for the JCS and the relevant regional/national funding organisation. Each consortium must nominate one project coordinator among the project’s principal investigators. The nomination of a project co-coordinator is not allowed.

If a partner is found to be ineligible by one of the funding organisations after the formal check, the entire proposal may be rejected without further review. For a definition of eligible partners, see “Guidelines for Applicants”, the regional/national regulations, and contact the concerned regional/national funding organisation.

A maximum project duration of 3 years may be applied for.

All eligibility criteria and submission requirements are detailed in the following two call documents: “Call text” and the “Guidelines for Applicants”.