Building the European Nanomedicine Research and Innovation Area: 10 years funding innovative research projects

Abstract

EuroNanoMed (ENM) is an ERA-NET for nanomedicine. ERA.NET is an EU funded network which had been established to support and increase the coordination of European research programmes and related funding. It is a platform for funding agencies and ministries to develop joint activities and programmes with the aim of coordinating high-quality research in diverse research fields, in this case nanomedicine, across national borders. It has been 10 years since the establishment of EuroNanoMed presently in its third phase. For those 10 years, Research and Innovation funding organizations in Europe and beyond have been joining forces to fund excellent innovative research projects in the main 3 topics defined by the European Technology Platform on Nanomedicine: targeted drug delivery, diagnostics and regenerative medicine. Ten joint transnational calls have been launched (the 10th call is ongoing). So far, 90 transnational projects have been funded, including 460 research groups from over 20 countries. In the Joint Transnational Call 2017—co-funded by national and regional funding organizations and the European Commission—16 projects were funded with a total investment of 14 million euros, including 3.3 million euros from the European Commission. In addition to EuroNanoMed's main activity of funding transnational innovative research projects, it collaborates with sister initiatives in nanomedicine and translational research. ENM has organised review seminars as well as safety, ethics and regulatory affairs training workshops. The purpose of this article is to summarise the activities of EuroNanoMed over the last 10 years.