Cascade Open Call 2023 for Research Node 5 - MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF INNOVATIVE ANTIVIRALS

We invite researchers from public and private research institutions to submit innovative research projects based on the application of various approaches and medicinal chemistry technologies for the design and synthesis of small molecules with antiviral activity. Interdisciplinary public-private collaborations are encouraged.

Projects responding to this call should aim at discovering and optimizing broad-spectrum antivirals, focusing on targeted inhibition of cellular and viral targets to address emerging and pre-existing viral diseases.

Expected Results: New pharmacological tools, or their combinations, which, through targeted inhibition of molecular targets, demonstrate antiviral properties against respiratory or vector-borne viruses.

• Calls will be open to teams including both private and public entities (minimum: 5 entities), external to the INF-ACT consortium.
• Each team must identify a lead organization (Leader), or the subject appointed and authorized to represent the whole team and maintain communications with the Spoke during all phases of the presentation and evaluation procedure and for the entire duration of the activities planning;
• The team Leader must be a public University or a public Research Organization;
• Each team Leader may submit only one project proposal in response to this call. On the other hand, the possibility is not precluded for the same entity to be part of other teams in response to other Cascade Calls
• Each team entity must indicate the name of the researchers involved in the proposed project activities (so-called "critical mass"), the expected commitment in person-months, their curriculum vitae to assess the actual contribution to the research work.
• Each team entity must participate with at least one researcher. The maximum number of researchers to be involved as critical mass for this project is 20.
• Each team must allocate at least 40% of the requested financing to entities located in regions of Southern Italy (tagging: territorial);
• In case of recruitment of new researchers, the team must comply with the provisions of article 47 "Equal opportunities, generational and gender, in public contracts PNRR and PNC" of Law Decree 31-May-2021, no. 77 converted into law 29-July-2021, n. 108;
• Budget breakdown and financial reporting must comply with guidelines and regulation for RRNP funded-projects.

Collection of applications started at 9:00 AM on Oct 11, 2023 and closed at 12:00 PM on Nov 13, 2023

• All allocated funds must be spent by the end of October 2025. Should MUR allow time extensions to the NRRP/PNRR INF-ACT project, extensions might be also provided to COC projects;
• Awarded teams will comply to NRRP/PNRR reporting rules as per the indications that will be made by INF-ACT Spoke and INF-ACT Foundation;
• Awarded teams will have to join the INF-ACT foundation as partners;
• Funding should be acknowledged in all publications emanating from the research carried out during the award period together with NRRP/PNRR funds using the following statements: "This research was supported by EU funding within the NextGenerationEU-MUR PNRR Extended Partnership initiative on Emerging Infectious Diseases (Project no. PE00000007, INF-ACT). [BENEFICIARY NAME] was recipient of INF-ACT Cascade Open Call 2023 (ID CALL)."
• Participation of private entity and co-financing are not mandatory, but an added value;
• Financial capacity of private entity will be assessed ex-post by third parties. In case of negative outcome, the private entity will be excluded from participating to the awarded project and, therefore, from receiving funding.

Proposals will be evaluated on the basis of the following evaluation criteria:

• Objective and scientific quality (max 50 points)
• Innovation and private sector involvement (max 20 points)
• Impact (max 15 points)
• Economic sustainability (max 15 points)

Proposals will be considered admissible for financing if they obtain at least 70 out of 100 points. Evaluation will be carried out by a panel of 3-5 international and highly-qualified scientists, who are not directly involved in the INF-ACT Research Program. Reviewers will sign a declaration to exclude possible conflicts of interest before accessing the scientific proposals to be evaluated.

The final ranking list has been published on the CNR website.