Call for research projects 2026 - Institut Exposum: exposome and behavior

[Call for projects] - Published on October 15, 2025 in Major projects, Emblematic projects

ExposUM is an initiative of the University of Montpellier and its partners¹ to set up an out-of-building, decompartmentalized reference institute for the study, training and science-society interaction of the environmental determinants of human health. ExposUM is the winner of the ExcellenceS call for projects (PIA4) and is supported by the Occitanie Region for the period 2022-2030.

Background and objective

The exposome corresponds to all lifelong exposures to environmental and social factors whose effects affect human health through the onset, promotion, modulation or prevention of diseases, whether transmissible or not. In this sense, it is the environmental counterpart of the genome, with which it interacts throughout an individual's life.

The aim of the ExposUM Institute's Research Axis is to support and accelerate the acquisition of primary knowledge in an interdisciplinary, coordinated and non-segmented way in the four pillars of the exposome:

1. Strengthen the monitoring of environmental exposures,
2. Refine our understanding of the ecology of hosts, pathogens, reservoirs and vectors ( One Health approach),
3. Improve fundamental understanding of the biological mechanisms that may be modulated by the exposome,
4. Study the consequences for human health.

Data science forms a bridge linking these pillars, in terms of both methodology and analysis, and the valorization of results. A second bridge, formed by the study and development of new exposure control strategies, completes this architecture articulated with the Interfaces and Training axes.

It is within this framework that the Institut ExposUM organizes an annual call for research projects (AAP-R), co-financed by the ANR and the Occitanie Region. Each AAP-R focuses on a different, deliberately broad theme, covering contexts, processes, patterns or methods, and including research in the pillars and bridges mentioned above.

In line with the ambitions set out in the ExcellenceS call for projects, the ExposUM Institute strongly encourages trans-disciplinary research projects with a focus on the South, the initiation of new collaborations, and the development of local and regional resources (in particular technological platforms). As far as possible, projects should be part of the open science approach, making the data produced easy to find, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR), see below.

Themes

The subject chosen by the Institut ExposUM for the AAP-R 2026 is: Exposome and behavior.

Human behavior - both individual and collective - shapes and modulates our exposome. They determine its nature and intensity, which vary throughout our lives, whether through daily practices (e.g. diet, physical activity, digital use), risk behaviors (e.g. tobacco, alcohol, addictions), or through interactions influencing psycho-social and biological exposures, including those related to pathogenic agents. Conversely, the exposome acts on our behaviours, through somatic, psychic - physiological as well as pathological - and socio-economic pathways, which feed non-trivial feedbacks. Understanding these dynamic interactions is essential for identifying effective prevention levers, reducing exposure inequalities and supporting major societal transitions (e.g. in the face of climate change, lifestyle transformations, emerging diseases). With this in mind, the Institut ExposUM is keen to support original, transdisciplinary research projects exploring the interface between behavior and the exposome, whether to better characterize exposure mechanisms, analyze behavioral determinants, or propose public health interventions incorporating this bidirectional dimension.

Financing arrangements

For its 2026 edition, the ExposUM Institute has divided its AAP-R into two categories.

Standard research projects

This category corresponds to the reference project format that qualifies for staff funding.² and operating funds needed to produce original results that can be valorized or published.

Amount and duration ceilings: €250,000 over 2 years.

Non-permanent researchers can submit a project in this category, provided they are already affiliated to the research structure for which the project is being submitted. The funds allocated can then be used to finance the project leader's salary.³if necessary, until the end of the project.

Exploratory research projects

The aim of these projects is to initiate an original, exploratory research dynamic, to test hypotheses and approaches not favored by ordinary calls for tenders, and to produce preliminary results with a view to applying for ambitious calls for tenders at a later stage.

Amount and duration ceilings: €50,000 over 2 years.

Eligible expenses and total amount

Eligible expenses include the salaries of non-statutory staff (researchers, engineers, technicians, assistants, but excluding doctoral contracts), operating costs and small-scale equipment. Personnel financed by the project may only be recruited within the consortium's research units.⁴.

For all eligible structures, whether or not the UM is a co-supervisor, the employer of the staff recruited will be the UM. In the case of structures without UM co-supervision, the funds required for recruitment will be retained by the UM to ensure recruitment (with certain exceptions). The sponsor must designate one of the co-supervisors of his or her structure as the manager of non-staff funds, after obtaining agreement in principle.

The total budget for the Institut ExposUM for this call is set at €2 million, with the aim of funding 7 standard projects and 7 exploratory projects⁵.

Submission process

As was the case last year, project submissions to the Institut ExposUM's AAP-R will take place in two selection phases: firstly, a short letter of intent, and secondly the full project, as in the ANR's generic calls for projects.

• A person may submit only one letter of intent to this call.
• NB: Submission of a project by a winner of a previous ExposUM Institute call for research projects is not encouraged. In addition, members of the three ExposUM Institute councils (CoDir, COER, COSS) are not allowed to submit projects as project leaders.

No internal pre-selection of research units is expected prior to the submission of LOIs, so there is no ceiling on the number of LOIs submitted by each research unit (up to a maximum of one per applicant).

However, research units are still asked to authorize the project to be submitted on behalf of the unit (signature on the letter of intent), which constitutes a commitment to carry out the project in the event of funding.

However, for reasons of balance, the Institut ExposUM reserves the right to set a ceiling on the number of letters of intent from the same research unit for the second phase.

As the ExposUM Institute's internal evaluation capacities are limited, a high degree of selectivity will be applied at this stage: a maximum of 14 letters of intent will be accepted per project category.

If the project includes a clinical research component, a signed agreement from the DRCI of the university hospital concerned is expected at the time of submission of the final project, to enable the project to be carried out within the budgetary, medical-scientific and ethical parameters defined in the final project. In view of the time required to obtain this agreement, we kindly ask the carriers concerned to anticipate this step. Otherwise, the final project will not be accepted by the Institut ExposUM.

Letters of intent should be drawn up using the template available for download in English or French. Any deviation from the instructions will render the project ineligible, without the possibility of rectification. Submissions must be made exclusively by sending the letter in PDF format (to be entitled NameStructureRecherche_NomPorteur.pdf) to the following address rf.re1760545458illep1760545458tnomu1760545458@paa-1760545458musop1760545458xe1760545458before November 30, 2025 (14:00 UTC+1), specifying [AAPR] in the subject line and copying the management of the supporting research structure).

Successful LOI applicants will be informed in early January of the next steps in the procedure.

As a rough guide, the complete project will take a month and a half to write, in English, with a view to evaluation by international experts, and will be similar to theAAPR 2025 in terms of its matrix.

Calendar

Eligibility of letters of intent

To be eligible, letters of intent - and the projects they represent - must meet the following criteria:

1. The letter of intent must be submitted by the date and time specified above. It must be drafted strictly in accordance with the instructions given in the matrix (fields must be filled in and not exceeded - the entire document must not exceed 2 pages).
2. The project's main sponsor must be a staff member affiliated with a research structure belonging to the consortium.⁶. Members of Unités d'Appui et de Research (UAR) may not apply as project leaders, but may participate as project partners.
3. The project's overriding ambition must be to produce knowledge relating to a human health determinant of environmental (including social) origin, and to fall within the thematic scope of the AAP (see introductory paragraphs). This must be evident from the first four fields of the project's scientific description.
4. Compliance with PIA4 project funding rules as defined by the ANR and those imposed by this call for proposals (see above).

The eligibility of the letters of intent will be checked collectively by the three boards of the Institut ExposUM, its project team and the UM's Direction des Programmes Structurants.

Pre-selection of letters of intent

Letters of intent will be evaluated on the nature of the focal exposure(s), the originality of the research question, the spatio-temporal scope of the study, methodological relevance, and the potential impact of the project's results at the interfaces with (human) behavior.

The letters of intent will be evaluated and ranked collegially by all members of the three ExposUM Institute boards. Pre-selection will then focus on the 14 standard projects and the 14 exploratory projects with the highest ranking.

Evaluation and selection of complete projects

All projects will be evaluated on the basis of the complete project submitted.⁷.

The scientific quality of research projects will be assessed by the Conseil d'Orientation et d'Évaluation de la Research (COER), which will endeavor to invite two anonymous external referees for each project, according to the following criteria:

• Its scientific interest and originality, within the scope of the ExposUM Initiative,
• His methodological skills,
• Its impact potential (both fundamental and applied),
• Feasibility (in terms of partners, schedule and budget).

The 14 projects in each category will thus be ranked on the basis of the aggregate score of the scientific evaluations alone. The 7 winning projects in each category will then be selected by the Conseil d'Orientation Scientifique et Stratégique (COSS), which will also assess, in the strategic interest of the Institute, the site and the partners, and only for equivalent scientific quality, the peri-scientific assets of the projects, i.e. :

• Transdisciplinarity and the initiation of new partnerships,
• The exposomic approach⁸,
• One Health and global health⁹A focus on the South and consideration for vulnerable populations¹⁰,
• The project's potential as a lever for behavioral prevention,
• Interaction with training and interfaces (science - society)¹¹,
• Capitalizing on local resources¹²Regional resources¹³and other projects already funded by ExposUM¹⁴,
• Respect for the open science approach adopted by the University of Montpellier.

Commitment of the carrier

• Respect, in the design and implementation of the project submitted to this Call for Proposals, the values and principles of scientific integrity intended to guarantee the honest and scientifically rigorous nature of all research work, as referred to in Article L.211-2 of the French Research Code and set out in the Charte nationale de déontologie des métiers de la recherche and the Charte relative à l'intégrité scientifique de l'Université de Montpellier;

• Respect, where applicable, the Nagoya Protocol;

• Include the logos of the University of Montpellier, France 2030 and the Institut ExposUM in all documents relating to the project;

• Send to the Institute (rf.re1760545458illep1760545458tnomu1760545458@paa-1760545458musop1760545458xe1760545458), an annual report (financial statement and summary report) that can be used in the University's communication media;

• Apply the UM's publication signature charter to all scientific publications; respect the provisions of open science and the Law for a Digital Republic ( open access publication). The holders of UM sub-tutored laboratories will deposit the full text of publications in the HAL-UM open archive;

• Take steps to obtain the necessary research authorizations/approvals in regulated sectors (genetically modified organisms, use of animals for scientific purposes, health data, use of genetic resources and resulting benefit-sharing, bioethics, etc.).

List of research structures eligible for this call for proposals

ABSys, AGAP Institut, AIDA, AMAP, Analyses, ART-Dev, ASTRE, BC2M, BCM, BIOLuM, BioWooEB, CBGP, CBS, CDE, CEE-M, CEFE, CEMIPAI, CEPEL, CERCOP, ChimEco, CRBM, CREAM, CSUM, DEFE, DGIMI, DIADE, DIASCOPE, DMEM, ECO&SOLS, ECOTRON, EDPFM, EDSM, ESPACE-DEV, EuroMov DHM, F&S, G-EAU, GECO, Génopolys, GM, HortSys, HSM, IATE, IBMM, ICGM, ICS, ICSM, IDEDH, IDESP, IEM, IES, IGF, IGH, IGMM, IHD, IHPE, IMAG, IMAGINE, INM, INNOVATION, INTERTRYP, IPSiM, IRCM, IRIM, IRMB, ISDM, ISEM, ITAP, L2C, LBE, LBN, LDP, LEPSE, LICeM, LIRDEF,LIRMM, LISAH, LMGC, LPHI, LUPM, Maraîchage, MARBEC, MEEB, MISTEA, MIVEGEC, MMDN, MOISA, MRE, MRM, MSH Sud, OREME, PAC Chimie Balard, PCCEI, Pech Rouge, PHIM, PhyMedExp, QualiSud, R&R, SantESiH, SELMET, SENS, SPO, Sys2diag, TETIS, TransVIHMI, VASSAL, VBIC.

1. Cirad, CNRS, Ifremer, INRAe, Inria, Inserm, IRD, ENSCM, Institut Agro, CHU Montpellier, ICM, Région Occitanie. ︎
2. Excluding doctoral contracts, which are funded by the dedicated Nexus scheme. ︎
3. Irrespective of the duration of ExposUM funding, and of the applicant's contract history, the applicant will be recruited by the University of Montpellier under a project contract, with a maximum salary of INM 596, corresponding approximately to a net monthly salary of €2300. Prior approval from the HR Department will be required. ︎
4. Partners from outside the consortium will only be able to receive funding via invoicing for services (funds remaining managed by the applicant's research unit). ︎
5. The Institut ExposUM reserves the right to adapt this distribution according to the relative quality of projects between categories. ︎
6. See list of ExposUM structures on last page. The candidate must already be an official member of the structure in question on November 30, 2025, and his/her contract (permanent or temporary, potentially as a result of this funding) with this structure must run until the planned end of the project (end 2028). Members affiliated to research structures within the ExposUM perimeter employed by a university other than the University of Montpellier are not eligible to apply. ︎
7. The procedure for this AAP does not include a response to the rapporteurs or an interview. ︎
8. Cf. e.g. article from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ︎
9. A simple mention of the " One Healthapproach" will be deemed insufficient: the simultaneous study of human, animal and environmental health must be explicitly argued and central to the project. ︎
10. Cf. definitions from the Comité Consultatif National d'Éthique and the Dictionnaire de l'Académie de médecine. ︎
11. The integration of students into the project or ordinary scientific dissemination are not considered as sufficient inter-axis articulation. Please refer to the actions specific to the Institute's other two axes. ︎
12. From the Montpellier site. ︎
13. Occitanie region. ︎
14. This point is valued only if the auxiliary project in question does not involve the same members and structures. ︎

Key words : call for projects, ExposUM