Fast-track co-creation funding for COVID-19 related activities

The past weeks have seen a signficant increase in collaboration activities among the European scientific community in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many European institutions have signed the Wellcome Trust’s Statement on Data Sharing in Public Health Emergencies, agreeing to make all relevant COVID-19 research available in open access, make research findings accessible before peer review, distribute interim and final research data on the outbreak, so as to share them with the World Health Organisation.

The European Open Science Cloud is an ideal tool to respond to public emergencies such as the COVID-19 virus. The EOSC Secretariat responded to this urgent international challenge by introducing a fast-track procedure to apply for co-creation funding, specifically dedicated to activities related to COVID-19.

What kinds of activities can apply for funding?

Activities and actions that deploy open science methods and resources, and make use of the EOSC communities in order to address issues related to COVID-19, such as the following:

• Opening up virus related research and data
• Sharing of infrastructures and services
• Developing open design equipment for fighting COVID-19
• Sharing sampling test methodologies and data
• Developing open methodologies, services, software and infrastructures for sharing data, practices and knowledge in relation to the development and treatment of COVID-19
• Developing open science methodologies for monitoring the spread of COVID-19
• Developing open-science / evidence-based methodologies for the development of policies to combat epidemics
• Accessing and combining open data, not only to eradicate this virus, but to learn how to deal with similar viruses and future outbreaks
• Assessing the validity of epidemic information in relation to the virus by ensuring that its sources can be traced and verified
• Other open science activities or actions related to the fighting of epidemics and pandemics

Applications will be evaluated according to Horizon 2020 criteria, by a specially established evaluation team which will work in coordination with the EOSC Secretariat Steering Group.

Please find the full call details and application form here.