Regulations for funding research collaborations on "Health in Old Age"

Announcement of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) [September 19, 2006 - deadline: January 03, 2007]

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1. Funding purpose and legal basis

1.1 Funding purpose

Progress in medicine has contributed to a considerable increase in life expectancy. This has not only led to an extension of the healthy phase of life but also to survival with a disease. This basically positive trend is, however, also an increasing challenge for the public health system because people are more likely to suffer, for example, from cardiovascular diseases, cancer or neurodegeneration as they grow older.

Comorbidity and multimorbidity, which increasingly occur in older people and are often associated with multimedication, are a big challenge. A major deficit in research and treatment can still be noticed in this area.
Preserving and increasing personal autonomy and health resources is among the major concerns of older people. Research is needed for developing efficient strategies to prevent the deterioration of older diseased patients' condition and to ensure that they receive effective support in coping with the physical and psychological implications of disease.
Many diseases which mainly affect older people have their origins early in life. Studies on the interaction between people's behaviour and their health are therefore of special importance. The social context and individual behaviour not only influence the occurrence of certain diseases but also the way in which people handle chronic illness and are thus crucial for the disease burden.

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) therefore intends to fund interdisciplinary research collaborations on the topic "Health in Old Age". BMBF research funding under this priority will focus on research activities which provide the scientific basis for improving medical treatment and care for older patients. This is to supplement other existing funding priorities of the Federal Government's Health Research Programme which deal with etiopathogenesis or diagnostic and therapeutic measures for certain diseases typical of old age. Such disease-specific funding measures already allow age-related research to a considerable extent. But they must be supplemented in order to take the interdisciplinary character of age-related problems into account.

1.2 Legal basis

Project grants will be awarded in accordance with the present funding regulations, the BMBF's standard terms and conditions for grants on an expenditure or cost basis and the administrative regulations under section 44 of the Federal Budget Code (BHO). Applicants have no legal claim to a grant. The grant-awarding agency will decide freely after due assessment of the circumstances within the framework of the budget funds available.

2. Object of funding

Funding will be provided for research collaborations which are coherent with regard to content, follow a convincing interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approach and are clearly relevant to application. Working groups from university and non-university research institutions should join forces in these collaborations and cooperate, if necessary, also with health care institutions at regional and national level. The research collaborations should as a rule comprise between 3 and 8 individual projects.
The research activities of the collaborations should deal with central health issues in old age which have not been given sufficient attention so far. Accordingly, research should preferably focus on one of the following subject areas:
a. Comorbidity and multimorbidity of older patients
b. Strengthening of health resources and autonomy in old age.
Use can be made of the potential of all relevant disciplines from basic research to epidemiological and clinical as well as care-oriented research for implementing innovative approaches in the two above-mentioned subject areas.
The research collaborations should produce a clear added value compared with individual projects. This added value can, for example, include the quality of research and its orientation to results, cooperation between research and the health care sector, support for young researchers and the scientific basis for improving medical care.
Within the framework of the above two subject areas, research activities can address the following topics in particular:

a. Comorbidity and multimorbidity of older patients
- Biomedical research into clinically relevant issues of multimorbidity,
- Epidemiological research to generate reliable prevalence data on multimorbidity,
- Research on the medication of older patients, particularly studies on multimedication,
- Therapy research for the treatment and management of multimorbidity, including rehabilitation and long-term care research,
- Transfer and implementation research to use existing evidence in the treatment of multimorbidity.

Research that covers a whole range of diseases should focus on generating valid evidence for the treatment of multimorbidity. In this connection, consideration should be given to patient-relevant and age-adjusted end points (e.g. quality of life and autonomy in old age) and, if required for addressing the topics of the proposed collaboration, to the forms of care and the care situation and to health economy aspects.

b. Strengthening of health resources and autonomy in old age
- Research on the determinants of health in older people and on health behaviour, particularly with a view to the prevention and control of chronic illnesses,
- Intervention surveys on secondary and tertiary prevention in old age ,
- Development and evaluation of innovative and age-adjusted concepts in the rehabilitation and long-term care of old people,
- Research to optimize the use of technical aids by older people in coping with illness and physical impairment .

The research approaches should, inter alia, focus on improving the orientation to patients and their needs when introducing measures to strengthen the health resources and autonomy in old age. They can also serve to develop age-related assessment and outcome criteria and to help bridge the gap between different forms of medical care.

The following applies to all thematic areas:
Gender aspects in research should be strengthened and become an integral part of the collaborations' research strategy. Physical impairment is experienced and mastered differently by women and men. Gender aspects must therefore be taken into account by all projects, and explicit reasons must be given for deviations from this rule.
Research projects on health in old age are faced with specific methodical problems, some of which require the development of new instruments or the adaptation of existing instruments to age specific problems. Applications for funding of research collaborations can therefore also cover the development of methods.
The research collaborations may also deal with measures aimed at the systematic interdisciplinary development and support of young research talent. If necessary, supplementary funding will be offered at a later date to promote scientific exchanges at European level, which will cover, for example, periods abroad and exchanges with institutes and hospitals of international partners.
Wherever possible, existing records and materials collections should be used systematically to tackle research problems, also by means of developing existing cross sectional studies into longitudinal studies. The establishment of new registers and/or data collections will only be funded if evidence can be furnished to prove that the available data are not sufficient.
Clinical studies can be funded if they are of special importance to the research collaboration. This can, for example, be the case with the inclusion of a large number of participants in collaborations, the collection of materials, the introduction of specific quality standards in studies or studies involving the outpatient care sector. Otherwise, applicants should refer to the joint programmes of DFG and BMBF for funding clinical studies.

This funding programme on health in old age will include the organization of inter- and multidisciplinary workshops/meetings which are to support the communication and cooperation between individual disciplines and the participating researchers.

Funding will not be provided for:
- Social science projects not related to diseases
- Studies on the biology of aging without direct reference to diseases
- Research projects which deal exclusively with general legal or economic conditions of health in old age
- Projects to guarantee quality assurance in medical care not dealing with research issues
- Individual projects which do not form part of a research collaboration
- Drug development and studies on individual medicines 
- Intervention projects for primary prevention in older people 
- Development and/or adaptation of technical equipment .

Beside the funding currently offered by the BMBF, the Volkswagen Foundation provides research support within the framework of its priority "Individual and Societal Perspectives of Aging".

3. Recipients of funding

Applications may be submitted by state-funded and private universities and non-university research institutions as well as by commercial companies and health care institutions (e.g. hospitals, rehabilitation clinics, out-patient and in-patient long-term care services). Research institutions which receive joint basic funding from the Federal Government and the Länder can only be granted project funds to cover additional expenditure under certain conditions.

4. Prerequisites for funding

The prerequisites for funding of a research collaboration are its scientific quality and the added value due to networking. Projects which can achieve their goals without cooperating with partners will not be funded. In such cases, applicants may refer to the funding programmes of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) which allow funding of individual projects without imposing any major networking requirements.
Applicants must previously have carried out relevant scientific work and be willing to engage in interdisciplinary cooperation. Interested parties must submit joint applications for the research collaborations which are to be funded. Cooperation between the partners in a collaborative project must be laid down in a cooperation agreement. Applicants must prove that they have reached basic agreement on specific criteria stipulated by the BMBF before a funding decision is taken; these criteria can be found in BMBF leaflet No. 0110. Applicants should, in their own interest, familiarize themselves with the EU's Research Framework Programme in the context of the planned national project. They should check whether the planned project includes specific European components which make it eligible for exclusive EU funding. Furthermore they should examine whether an additional application for supplementary funding can be submitted to the EU for the proposed national project. Applicants should briefly state the results of such examination in their national application. Information on EU funding can be found here.

5. Type, scope and rates of funding

Funding will be awarded as non-repayable grants for projects over a period of up to three years. The sub-projects of the collaboration should therefore be planned on a three-year basis. The collaborations can apply for funding for another three years; their follow-up proposals should take account of the progress previously made and can include new sub-projects. A decision will be taken on the follow-up application after a panel of external experts has been consulted. Depending on the budget funds available, a decision will then be taken on whether new collaborations can be allowed to submit proposals.
Applications can be submitted for funding of staff and equipment including travel expenses and project-related investments which do not form part of the applicants' basic equipment. Cooperation with thematically related R&D projects in other (European) countries will be possible. The related additional expenses for travelling are eligible for funding if this can be expected to produce synergy. Expenditure which applicants incur for obtaining ethical votes from their own university is considered to be expenditure on basic equipment and is not eligible for funding. The expenses of or costs for filing a patent during the project period are basically eligible for funding under the BMBF's standard terms and conditions.
The basis for calculating the grants for universities, research and science institutions and similar establishments is the project-related expenditure eligible for funding (grants for Helmholtz centres and the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft – FhG – will be calculated on the basis of the project-related costs eligible for funding); up to 100 per cent of such expenditure/costs can be funded in individual cases.
The basis for calculating the grants for commercial companies is the eligible project-related costs, up to 50% of which can as a rule be covered by government grants, depending on the project's orientation to application. The BMBF policy requires a minimum self-contribution of 50% towards the eligible costs incurred.
The European Commission's Community Framework for State Aid for Research and Development must be taken into account when fixing the rates of funding. The Community Framework allows differentiated rules on extra percentage points for collaborative projects proposed by applicants from the new German Länder and for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which may result in a higher rate of funding.

6. Other terms and conditions for awarding funds

The General Auxiliary Conditions for Grants for the Promotion of Projects (Allgemeine Nebenbestimmungen für Zuwendungen zur Projektförderung – ANBest-P) and the Special Auxiliary Terms and Conditions for Funds Provided by the BMBF for the Promotion of Projects on Expenditure Basis (Besondere Nebenbestimmungen für Zuwendungen des BMBF zur Projektförderung auf Ausgabenbasis – BNBest-BMBF 98) will form part of the notification of award of expenditure-based grants.
The Auxiliary Terms and Conditions for Funds Provided by the BMBF to Commercial Companies for Research and Development Projects on Cost Basis (Nebenbestimmungen für Zuwendungen auf Kostenbasis des BMBF an Unternehmen der gewerblichen Wirtschaft für Forschungs- und Entwicklungsvorhaben – NKBF 98) will be part of the notification of award of cost-based grants.

7. Procedure

7.1 Involvement of a project management organization and request for documents

The BMBF has entrusted its health project management organization (PT-DLR) with implementing the funding activity:

Projektträger im DLR
- Gesundheitsforschung -
Heinrich-Konen-Straße 1
53227 Bonn
Germany
Tel.: +49 228 3821-144 or 250
Fax: +49 228 3821-257
www.pt-dlr.de

Forms for formal applications, guidelines, leaflets, information and auxiliary terms and conditions are available on the Internet or can be obtained directly from the project management organization. Applicants are strongly recommended to use the electronic application system "easy" for drafting formal applications.
Applicants are advised to contact the project management organization to obtain advice on how to apply. The organization will provide further information and explanations.

7.2 Two-tiered funding procedure

The funding procedure is two-tiered but evaluation involves only a single step which includes external experts.

7.2.1 Submission and selection of informal project descriptions

In a first step, an informal project description for the research collaboration must be submitted by post to the PT-DLR project management organization

by January 03, 2007

via the prospective coordinator of the collaboration. With a view to the international evaluation, it is recommended that the project descriptions be submitted in English. Furthermore, the project descriptions should enable the panel of experts to give a final opinion.
The deadline for submission is not a cut-off deadline. However, it may not be possible to consider project descriptions received belatedly. Applicants submitting their proposals late are urgently advised to contact the PT-DLR before doing so. Application by e-mail or fax is not possible.

Project descriptions for research collaborations must explain both the structure and the research programme of the collaboration. The project descriptions (A4 pages, single-spaced, Arial 11, double-sided) must not exceed ten pages for the general concept and ten pages per planned research project.
Twenty copies of the project descriptions, including one unbound copy for photocopying purposes, plus a pdf file on CD-ROM must be submitted. The project description must be structured according to the guide for application under the funding initiative "Health in Old Age".
No legal claim can be derived from the submission of an informal project description. The project descriptions received will be evaluated by a panel of independent experts on the basis of the following criteria:
- Innovative character and relevance of the problem to be studied
- Scientific and methodical quality of the concept
- Previous relevant work of the applicants and resources available
- Coherence with regard to content and interaction of the research collaboration
- Added value of networking for research
- Opportunities and strategies for the application of results in medical care.

Suitable collaborations will be selected for funding on the basis of the evaluation. The applicants will be informed in writing about the result of the selection procedure.

7.2.2 Submission of formal applications and decision-making procedure

When a proposed collaboration has been evaluated positively, the applicants will be invited to submit by a specified date a formal proposal agreed with the prospective coordinator of the collaboration in a second step of the procedure; a decision will be taken after final evaluation.

Approval and payment of and accounting for the funds as well as proof and examination of proper use and, if necessary, revocation of the award and reclaiming of the funds awarded are governed by the administrative regulations pertaining to section 44 of the Federal Budget Code (BHO) and sections 48 to 49a of the Administrative Procedure Act (VwVfG) unless deviation is allowed under the present funding regulations.

8. Entry into force

These funding regulations will enter into force on September 19, 2006.
Berlin, 11.09.2006

Dr. Hausdorf
Head of Health Research Division
Federal Ministry of Education and Research