EUP OHAMR : JTC2026 OH-TREAT - Treatments and Adherence to Treatment protocols
Fond National de la Recherche Scientifique (F.R.S.-FNRS)
Aim of the call
Drug-resistant infections are responsible for an increasing number of treatment failures, increased mortality and decreased food productivity. Inappropriate use, poor adherence to prescriptions, and overuse of antibiotics are one of the main drivers of AMR and have a detrimental impact on the effectiveness of these critical medicines.
To develop novel treatment protocols or alternative treatment strategies against infectious diseases and to improve, preserve and reinforce the clinical efficacy of the current treatment antimicrobials is vital. It is also necessary to identify barriers preventing the proper adherence of the end-users to the treatment protocols already in place.
This first EUP OHAMR Call aims to improve the treatment success rates of the patients/animals/plants affected by bacterial or fungal infections by providing new treatment options while reducing the risk of resistance in the different One Health settings.
Call topics
Research & innovation proposals submitted under this call must address one of the following topics:
Topic 1
Identify and develop new combination treatments using existing or innovative antimicrobials or antimicrobial with adjunctive treatments to extend drug efficacy and combat resistance.
Resistance limits the usability of many commonly-used antibiotics and antifungal agents in Human Health, Animal Health, and Plant Health.
Proposals addressing this topic should identify and develop therapies to be used in combination (combination of different antimicrobials, or combination of an antimicrobial and a non-antimicrobial that improves activity or facilitates a better targeting towards the site of infection) to reduce the development of resistance against antibacterial and antifungal treatments and extend the usability of inexpensive and readily available antimicrobials. These studies should be underpinned by scientific rationale and mechanism of action of these treatments.
In the framework of this topic, improvement of existing combination treatments is eligible (i.e. pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, mode of administration). The choice of the targeted pathogens should be well justified. For the proposals having a Human Health interest, the proposed combination treatment should be directed against one of the bacterial or fungal pathogens included in the WHO priority lists:
WHO bacterial priority pathogens list, 2024 (who.int)
WHO fungal priority pathogens list to guide research, development and public health action (who.int)
Topic 2
Develop tools and methods to improve adherence to treatment protocols.
A low adherence to the treatment protocols by end-users (patients, farmers, citizens) leads to a decreased probability of success and to an increased risk of resistance to antibacterial and antifungal treatments.
Proposals addressing this topic should identify the reasons of poor adherence to treatment protocols (Human, Animal, Plant), and/or develop innovative tools (including digital tools) and methods (including sociological and behavioural approaches) to improve the adherence to treatment protocols and/or test and compare the efficiency of existing or innovative tools and methods on the adherence to treatment protocols.
Engagement with end-users is mandatory. The consideration of vulnerable groups, which often have reduced access to conventional health and care services, is expected.
Topic 3
Assess the impact of antimicrobials for veterinary and agricultural use on the risk of AMR transmission to humans and the environment to inform policies on the restriction of some antimicrobials for human use.
Proposals addressing this topic are expected to assess the impact of mechanisms of action, formulations, routes of administration and treatment regimens of antibacterial and antifungal drugs authorized for veterinary and agricultural use on the risk of emergence and transmission of AMR to humans and the environment.
Proposals addressing this topic should also aim to improve the formulation, dosage, delivery, routes of administration and treatment regimens (including pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics) currently used in the veterinary and agricultural sector, to decrease the risk of cross-resistance, or transmission to humans and the environment.
The aim is to generate evidence to support policies that restrict certain antimicrobials for exclusive human use and inform policies such as the WHO List of Medically Important Antimicrobials (who.int).
WHO List of Medically Important Antimicrobials (who.int)
Requirements for all call topics
The following requirements applies for all call topics:
Proposals should consider how the proposed approach will impact the risk of resistance in other One Health settings, and how the proposed approach could be extended to other One Health settings.
Proposals should explain their feasibility by outlining realistic objectives, practical methodologies, and achievable timelines (e.g.: workplan, risk identification, allocation of resources, capacity of the consortium to conduct the work, business plan if the proposal envisages commercial component, etc).
Proposals must clearly demonstrate the potential health, social and/or economic impact(s) of the expected results. In particular, the proposals should explain how the uptake of the expected project results by the society/ end-users/ next actors in the value chain will be facilitated.
Proposals should clearly demonstrate the benefit of working together and the unique contribution of each partner (i.e. expertise, resources). In addition, the proposals should demonstrate the added-value of transnational collaboration: sharing of expertise and resources (models, databases…), harmonization of data, access to innovative technologies, etc.
Participation of the private sector (start-up, SMEs, industry) in the consortium is encouraged for all call topics if appropriate and if allowed according to national funding eligibility rules.
Financement
Each partner is funded separately by the national/regional funding organisation they are applying to. They must fulfil the conditions of their funding organisation.
The maximum amount of requested funding per project is 300.000 EUR for a total period of thee years. If the project involves the recruitment of a PhD student, the project duration of the F.R.S.-FNRS sub-project could be up to four years.
Eligible costs items
Personnel costs: 80,000€ EUR per year on average for the duration of the project. The usual duration of ERA-NET research programmes is three years. However, when the project involves a PhD student, the principal investigator can apply for an additional one year funding in order to complete the four years PhD programme. Since this programme is co-funded by the European Commission, this final year should not be included in the budget submitted to this call.
Equipment: can be eligible up to 20% of the total budget of the project
Running costs: travel expenses; organisation of small scientific events in Belgium; consumables and the following support costs: consumables Publication Designing (conception d’ouvrage) Dictionary Production (réalisation de dictionnaire) Purchase of Books Encoding Software Access Rights Congress Registration Fees Purchase of Computer Scanning Travel costs Visa costs Open Access publication of an article up until 500 euros (see F.R.S-FNRS Open Access policy).
“Overhead”
For “overhead” costs:
Operating expenses: up to 1% within the granted budget. This percentage should be included in the requested operating budget.
Personnel: up to 2% outside of the granted budget. This percentage will be paid upon reimbursement of expenses to institutions by the F.R.S.-FNRS.
Pour postuler
Transnational level
Pre-proposals and full proposals must be submitted by the project coordinator on the EUP OHAMR on-line submission platform. No other means of submission (i.e. post or e-mail) will be accepted. Please note that some funding organisations might request an additional mandatory submission on their own national/regional platform. Pre-/full proposals submitted on a national/regional platform but not on the EUP OHAMR submission platform will be rejected without further review.
National/regional level
Applicants must provide basic administrative data by submitting an administrative application on e-space within 5 working days after the general deadline of the call to be eligible. Please select the “PINT-MULTI” funding instrument when creating the administrative application.
Deadlines
Deadline for short proposal submission is 2 February 2026 (13.00 CET)
Deadline for submission to FNRS is 9 February 2026 (14.00 CET)
Deadline for full proposal submission is 17 June 2026 (13.00 CEST)
Requis d'admission
Eligibility of the consortia
Joint research proposals may be submitted by partners belonging to the following categories:
Academia (public and private universities, other higher education institutions or research institutes).
Clinical/public health sector (hospitals/public health and/or other health care settings and health organisations, including primary health care).
Enterprises (private companies of all sizes involved in research and innovation).
Operational stakeholders – e.g. patient advocacy organisations, municipalities and local governments, local/national NGOs. Operational stakeholders should be able to provide useful knowledge to the consortium, ensure the consortium’s research is useful and translatable to their (or other) organisational contexts, and/or influence decision making or create change within their organisations. Operational stakeholders should be engaged in the research process from conception of the study to dissemination.
To be eligible, the submitted pre-/full proposals must respect the following eligibility rules regarding the composition of their consortium. Consortia not respecting the eligibility rules will be rejected without further review.
The consortium must include a minimum of three (3) eligible partners asking for funding from three (3) different eligible countries (including at least two amongst EU Member States or Associated Countries).
The consortium can include a maximum of six (6) project partners, including non-funded partners.
The maximum number of partners can be increased to seven (7) if the consortium includes:
at least one partner from an under-represented country (For the purpose of this call, the under-represented countries are: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Poland, and Slovakia) or
at least one partner where the Principal Investigator meets the definition of an Early-Career Researcher or
a start-up, SME, or an Industry.
A consortium cannot include more than two (2) partners requesting funding from the same funding organisation. Please note that for United Kingdom partners, the limit of two applies to both UK funding organisations, meaning that the consortium cannot include more than two UK partners funded either by MRC-UKRI or by Innovate-UK.
A principal investigator can coordinate only one (1) submitted pre-proposal/ full proposal.
Eligibility for belgian partners (F.R.S. - FNRS):
Applicants requesting funding from F.R.S. FNRS must comply with the following rules.
The applicant must be affiliated to a university from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB).
At the closure of the call, the applicant should also:
- Be a permanent researcher of F.R.S-FNRS (Chercheur qualifié, maître de recherches ou Directeur de recherche) or;
- Hold a tenure track position (or an assimilated position including pending tenure track) with a research institution from the FWB
After the submission of applications, the F.R.S.-FNRS and the research institutions are required to verify the eligibility of the candidates. The F.R.S.-FNRS reserves the right to refuse those whose eligibility criteria would not comply with the Regulation. In order the check the compliance with these eligibility criteria, please contact your contact person at ULB-TTO (see details below). The complete F.R.S-FNRS rules for international research projects is available at the following link: https://www.frs-fnrs.be/docs/Reglement-et-documents/International/FRS-FNRS_PINT-Multi.pdf
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