InterHeart: Understanding the interactions between cardiovascular diseases and comorbidities and/or their therapeutic treatments (InterHeart)


Aim of the call

The aim of the call is to support research that:

  • build our understanding of molecular and cellular mechanisms governing interactions between the cardiovascular system and the other organs/systems when at least one of the two presents a pathological state,
  • build a comprehensive approach to understanding cardiovascular disease interactions, combining basic research, clinical translation, and digital innovation through international collaboration,
  • enable transnational collaboration of multidisciplinary scientists from different countries to work together across borders, taking advantage of complementary expertise and leveraging diverse patient populations and sets of data.

The proposals should focus on expanding knowledge and understand:

  • how CVD affect the performance of other organs/systems and/or their capacity to respond to treatments,
  • how disorders other than CVD affect cardiovascular system performance including response to treatments,
  • and/or how treatment for disorders other than CVD affect positively or negatively the performance of the cardiovascular system.

The proposals should include one of the following approaches:

  • Mechanistic / experimental research,
  • Identification and validation of biomarkers of organs/systems/disorders crosstalk mentioned above (including epigenetics biomarkers),
  • Generation of digital models of disease(s) to study disease-disease or disease-drug.

Exclusion:

  • Except for small-scale clinical studies up to phase 2, all other clinical studies are excluded in this call,
  • Proposals which are not dealing with the cardiovascular system or CVD,
  • Proposals that only study the cardiovascular system or CVD without studying the interaction with other organs, systems, diseases or the response to their treatment,
  • Studies on how CVD treatments affect the performance of other system/organs,
  • Development of therapeutics,
  • Infectious diseases, even if studied with CVD.
InterHeart2025

Call Calendar

Call Pre-announcement 12 December 2024
Publication of InterHeart call January 7th, 2025
Webinar Infoday January 14th, 2025 12:00 CET
Deadline for pre-proposal submission March 7th, 2025 12:00 CET
Communication of the results of the pre-proposal assessment (invitation for full proposal) May 7th, 2025
Deadline for the submission of invited Full-proposals June 17th, 2025 12:00 CEST
Rebuttal stage Aug 22th – Sep 3rd, 2025
Communication of the funding decisions to the applicants End of October 2025
Expected project start (subject to national procedures) Dec 2025 – May 2026

Further information

Joint Call Secretariat (JCS) - Anaïs Fradet and Martine Batoux: interheart@agencerecherche.fr

General conditions for application

The duration of the projects will be 36 months.

Joint research proposals may be submitted by applicants belonging to one of the following categories (eligibility of project partners may vary according to national/regional regulations):

  • Academia
  • Clinical/public health sector
  • Enterprises
  • Operational stakeholders

Only transnational projects will be funded. The following conditions apply to the composition of consortia:

  • A minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 eligible partners from at least 3 different countries participating in the call. The maximum number of eligible partners can be increased up to six or seven if they include one or two partners, respectively, from an underrepresented country (Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia).
  • No more than 2 eligible partners from the same country.
  • A maximum of 2 collaborators (self-funded partner not applying funding). Project partners will be funded by their relevant national/regional funding organisation. Eligible costs and funding rules vary between the respective funding organisations.

There will be a two-step submission and evaluation procedure for joint applications, i.e. pre-proposals and full proposals, and the full proposal review process will be complemented by a rebuttal stage. For both submission steps, one joint proposal document (in English) shall be prepared by the partners of a joint transnational proposal and must be submitted on the electronic submission system by the project coordinator.