Call for research projects ExposUM 2023: The emerging exposome

[Call for projects] - Published on December 9, 2022 in Major Programs, Flagship Projects

ExposUM is an initiative of the University of Montpellier and its partners¹ aimed at establishing an open, off-campus institute of reference for the study, training, and science-society interaction of the environmental determinants of human health. Winner of the ExcellenceS (PIA4) call for projects and supported by the Occitanie Region, ExposUM is funded to the tune of €46.4 million over the period 2022-2030.

Context & objective

The exposome refers to the sum of lifetime exposures to environmental and social factors whose specific effects, combined with individuals' intrinsic characteristics, underlie health and the onset, progression, and severity of infectious and noncommunicable diseases in humans. In this sense, it is the environmental counterpart to the genome, with which it interacts throughout an individual's lifetime.

Research ExposUM Research Division aims to accelerate the acquisition of primary knowledge in an interdisciplinary, coordinated, and non-segmented manner in the four pillars of exposome research:

1. Strengthen the monitoring of environmental exposures,
2. Refine understanding of the ecology of hosts, pathogens, reservoirs, and vectors using aOne Health approach.
3. Improve fundamental knowledge of biological mechanisms,
4. Study the consequences for human health.

Across the board, the "data science" dimension (in the broad sense) can be present in all pillars, both from a methodological point of view (new methods) and in terms of the use and exploitation of results.

To this end, the ExposUM Institute will organize an annual call for research projects (CFP), funded by the ANR and the Occitanie Region, until 2030. Each call for proposals will focus on a different theme, deliberately broad or multiple, relating to contexts, processes, patterns, or methods, and including research relating to the four pillars mentioned above. However, projects are not expected to fall within each of the four pillars.

In line with the ambitions set out in the ExcellenceS call for proposals, the ExposUM Institute will strongly encourage transdisciplinary research projects focused on the Global South, the initiation of new collaborations, and the promotion of local and regional resources (in particular technology platforms), without these aspects constituting eligibility criteria (see below). Finally, projects should, as far as possible, be part of the open science approach, making the data generated easy to find, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR).

AAP 2023

The title of the ExposUM Institute's 2023 call for proposals, proposed by its Research Orientation and Evaluation Committee Research COER) and approved by its Scientific and Strategic Orientation Committee (COSS), isthe emerging exposome.

Part of the exposome (exposure(s) and any associated biological responses) is considered emergent if it exhibits, or is likely to exhibit in the future, at least one of the following properties:

• a new type of pollution (exposure highlighted in recent years, e.g., microplastics),
• a recently modified spatial pattern (new contexts/areas of occurrence, sources, e.g., arboviruses),
• a recently modified temporal pattern (increase in exposure duration/frequency, propagation speed, e.g., blue light).

Submission guidelines

The project must preferably be written in English using the template available online, following the instructions provided (please note: no appendices will be accepted), then submitted to exposum.sciencesconf.org (requires a Sciences Conf. account) (and sent as a backup email, specifying [AAPR] in the subject line and copying in the unit director) by the principal investigator (1 submission per project), in the form of a PDF file named NomUMR_NomPorteur.pdf before April 7, 2023 (2:00 p.m., Paris time).

Moderation of the number of projects per unit

In the event that a large number of projects are submitted, unit directors are asked to moderate the number of applications submitted according to the following levels:

Expenses and total amount

Funding must be expressly justified by the project and must be between €100,000 and €300,000 for a maximum period of three years. Eligible expenses include salaries (young researchers, design or research engineers, but not doctoral contracts, which will be funded under ExposUM through another mechanism), operating costs (reminder: laboratory "management costs" are not eligible) or equipment (with a limit of €10,000 for equipment). As these are ANR funds, they can only be used to finance staff recruited for the project (post-doctoral researchers, ITA) within the consortium's research units.

Partners outside the consortium will only be able to receive funding through the invoicing of services (the funds will continue to be managed by the project leader's research unit).

Calendar

• Official opening: December 9, 2022
• Opening of the submission platform: February¹
• Deadline for submission by project leaders: April 7, 2023, 2 p.m.
• Release of results: first half of July 2023
• Project start date: September 2023

Eligibility

Only applications that meet the following three criteria will be considered:

• The project must be led by a member affiliated with a research organization belonging to the consortium.² of the public experimental institution. Support and Research Units Research UAR) may not apply as project leaders for this call for proposals, but may participate as project partners.
• The project must aim to generate knowledge relating to the exposome —i.e., any environmental determinant of human health —and fall within the thematic scope of the current call for proposals. This relevance must be evident from the project summary.
• compliance with the PIA4 project funding rules as defined by the ANR (see https://anr.fr/fr/rf/) and those imposed by this call (see above).

Selection criteria

Projects are evaluated in a single stage based solely on the submitted application (there is no response round to reports or interviews). The evaluation includes a scientific component, which accounts for two-thirds of the score, and a non-scientific component, which relates to the Institute's strategy and the site.

The scientific evaluation will be carried out independently by two anonymous external reviewers, potentially chosen from among the suggestions requested in the application, who will assess the following elements of the submitted project:

• its scientific interest and originality,
• its methodological qualities,
• its potential impact (both fundamental and applied),
• its feasibility (in terms of partners, schedule, and budget presented).

The peri-scientific evaluation will be carried out jointly by two members of the COER and will aim to assess the following qualities:

• transdisciplinarity, the initiation of new partnerships,
• the One Health dimension, global health,
• partnership in the South,
• the potential for health applications,
• the transposition of results into training and science-society interaction,
• capitalizing on local and regional resources, as well as other projects submitted or underway within the ExposUM scope.

Commitments of the Project Leader

• comply, in the design and implementation of the project submitted under this Call for Projects, the values and principles of scientific integrity intended to guarantee the honesty and scientific rigor of all research work, as referred to in Article L.211-2 of the Research Code and set out in the National Charter of Ethics for Research Professions and the Charter on Scientific Integrity of the University of Montpellier,
• comply with the Nagoya Protocol, where applicable,
• include the logos of the University of Montpellier, France 2030, and the ExposUM Institute in all documents relating to the implementation of the project,
• send theInstitute a mid-term report and another report no later than two months after the end of the project (financial statement and summary report), which may be used in the University's communications materials in accordance with a template provided with the notification letter,
• apply the UM publication signature charter in force to all scientific output; comply with provisions relating to open science and the Law for a Digital Republic (open access publication). The heads of UM-supervised laboratories will deposit the full text of publications in the HAL-UM open archive.
• take the necessary steps to obtain the required research authorizations/approvals in regulated sectors (genetically modified organisms, use of animals for scientific purposes, health data, use of genetic resources and sharing of the resulting benefits, bioethics, etc.).

Results

Scope of the call

The ExposUM Institute's first call for research projects (AAP-R) was open for submissions from December 9, 2022, to April 7, 2023. The theme of this call for proposals, proposed by the ExposUM Institute's Research Orientation and Evaluation Council Research COER) and approved by its Scientific and Strategic Orientation Council (COSS), was the emerging exposome.

Under this call, the ExposUM institute received a total of 38 research projects for a funding capacity limited to 7 projects.

Selected projects

1. CIRAD, CNRS, IFREMER, INRAe, INRIA, INSERM, IRD, ENSCM, Institut Agro, Montpellier University Hospital, ICM, Occitanie Region. ↩︎
2. See list of eligible joint research units and platforms on the last page ↩︎

Keywords: call for proposals, I-SITE, Research