The EPND Consortium invites the neurodegenerative disease community to bring promising research questions to EPND, to test the full suite of functionalities of its data and sample sharing platform. Selected applicants will join a robust community of neurodegenerative disease researchers, working to accelerate the discovery of diagnostic and therapeutic solutions for neurodegenerative diseases.

Read on to learn more about our Call, and how to apply!

The EPND Consortium is made up of 29 public and private partners and is creating new pathways for collaborative research by removing barriers to sample and data sharing. With 19 countries currently represented, EPND is building a diverse community of researchers in Europe working to eradicate neurodegenerative diseases. Earlier this year, EPND launched its extended Study Catalogue, which includes metadata from over 70 cohorts, across 12 disease areas with almost 240,000 participants.

EPND now invites academic and industry researchers to submit an expression of interest to leverage neurodegeneration biosamples and data catalogued on the EPND platform. Successful proposals will benefit from financial support and an array of support services, including facilitated access to requested biosamples and data. The deadline for applications is 15 September 2024.

The EPND team will evaluate the Expressions of Interest and identify studies aligned with the goals of this call for submission of a full proposal in November. Successful applicants will be highlighted on the EPND technical hub and Catalogue, and will receive a range of resources including secure workspaces, tools, and community support through the AD Data Initiative's AD WorkBench.

Successful applicants will be able to access:

• Funding in the range of €10k-€50k per accepted proposal for biosample costs (although interested applicants are expected to apply with external funding sources to enable their research study)
• Well-characterised samples from AD, PD, and other neurodegeneration cohorts, as well as a rich selection of datasets for combined analyses
• Technical support for data harmonisation, saving time before initiating analysis
• Secure workspaces, tools and apps, including: Jupyter Notebook, RStudio, Julia, Docker, GitLab, LibreOffice, Visual Studio Code, the NTKapp, and more
• The ability to upload or install their own tools and software, as well as storage space, compute power, and community features on the AD WorkBench (provided by the AD Data Initiative)
• Ethical-legal support, including interpretive guidance, and assistance in understanding compliance requirements in terms of data protection, consenting, institutional ethics approvals and data/sample access approvals.

As part of the application process, we want to gather user feedback of the EPND platform and Catalogue, to help us shape the type of support we offer to successful applicants. Therefore, we invite you to propose possible incentives in the questionnaire attached to the application form, that you would find valuable in addition to those listed above, and the EPND management board will take this into consideration. Feel free to be creative in the incentives you propose!

Ready to apply? Download the application form and questionnaire here.

Have a question for the EPND team? Please email us at collaborate@epnd.org.

Want to learn more? Click here to access more information about the application process, eligibility criteria, and important deadlines; or click the button below to download the full Call text and FAQs.