EPNA - Biomedical call 2025: “Mechanisms of Resilience and Vulnerability to Environmental Challenges in Mental Health”

"EXCELLENT PAPER IN NEUROSCIENCE" AWARD 2025

EPNA - Biomedical call

With a thematic focus on “Mechanisms of Resilience and Vulnerability to Environmental Challenges in Mental Health”

Submission deadline for applications: October 15, 2025

1. General call description  

The ERA-NET NEURON partner countries are issuing the EXCELLENT PAPER IN NEUROSCIENCE AWARD to recognize the remarkable and outstanding scientific publications by early-career researchers in the field of disease-related, translational, neurosciences. Sole First Author of original research article published between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2024, and affiliated with one of the call partner countries listed below are eligible to apply.

The deadline for proposal submission is October 15th, 2025.

The Excellent Paper in Neuroscience Award 2025 focuses on Mechanisms of Resilience and Vulnerability to Environmental Challenges in Mental Health. The article should contribute to the progress on important translational research questions to improve our knowledge concerning neurobiological mechanisms involved in resilience or vulnerability to environmental challenges in mental health.

Research areas may cover a broad range of aspects including, among others, genetic, epigenetic, anatomical, molecular, immunological, and endocrine mechanisms. Research articles that address the development of predictive, preventative, diagnostic and/or therapeutic approaches with the potential to enhance resilience based on known or hypothesized neurobiological mechanisms are within the scope of this call, as are articles to understand the neurobiological basis of therapeutic technologies promoting resilience.

The call will accept research papers ranging from understanding preclinical research up to proof-of-concept clinical studies addressing the neurobiological mechanistic understanding of vulnerability and resilience to mental disorders.

An award of EUR 3 000 will be granted to the best proposal. The winner will be invited as an “Excellent Paper in Neuroscience” special lecturer during the FENS Forum 2026 in Barcelona, Spain. ERA-NET NEURON will cover the award and travel costs related to the lecture.

Call Partner Countries (24): Australia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom.

2. Aim of the call  

Currently ERA-NET NEURON (the Network of European Funding for Neuroscience Research) links 28 national research funding programs and organizations in the field of disease-related neurosciences in Europe, Israel, Turkey, Taiwan, and Canada. The EXCELLENT PAPER IN NEUROSCIENCE AWARD will emphasize the importance of neuroscience and will contribute to integrating the neuroscience research community. The award is designed as a form of support and encouragement for researchers at the early stage of their career.

3. Eligibility 

The application must fulfil the following criteria:

Author:

• The sole first Author in the proposed publication. Shared first authorships is not considered for the award.
• The Author must have been affiliated with a call partner country at the time of publication (list of eligible countries above).
• Pre-doctoral and postdoctoral early career researchers until a maximum of three years from a PhD or an equivalent degree at the date of publication. (Equivalent degrees to the PhD may vary from a different country. A Medical degree alone is not sufficient. In addition, a minimum formation in research (M.Sc. or Ph.D.) is required or proof of an appointment that requires doctoral equivalency (e.g. post-doctoral fellowship, professorship appointment).
• Eligible breaks include parental leaves, long-term illness, and national service. Concerning parental leave, national rules apply, or 12 months per child, whichever is the greatest.

Publication:

• Award period: published between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2024.
• Affiliation of the sole first Author with a call partner country as stated in the publication.
• Articles published in open access or available via open access publication repository is encouraged.
• Original research articles published in an international peer review journal.
• The topic of the article must be clearly relevant to disease-related bio-medical research, translational, neurosciences and, it must fall into one of the following two categories:
  • a) Fundamental research addressing mental health vulnerability and resilience including the pathogenesis, aetiology, progression, treatment, and prevention of mental diseases initiated by exposure to adverse environmental challenges. This may include the use of knowledge on neurobiological mechanisms for the development of innovative technologies with the potential to promote mental health, reduce the incidence of mental disorders, and improve clinical outcomes.
  • b) Clinical research addressing mental health vulnerability and resilience aiming to develop novel strategies for prevention, diagnosis, patient stratification, therapy and/or rehabilitation for mental diseases initiated by exposure to adverse environmental challenges. This may include research articles focusing on the identification of neurobiological targets to enhance resilience.

The following research areas are excluded from this call:

• Neurodegenerative disorders that are addressed by the EU Joint Programme – Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND). (Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative dementias, Parkinson’s disease (PD) and PD-related disorders, Prion disease, Motor neuron diseases, Huntington’s disease, Spinocerebellar ataxia, Spinal muscular atrophy)
• Articles focusing on existing pharmacological treatments with their current indications,
• Articles focusing solely on technological developments in disregard of neurobiological mechanisms.

4. Application

Eligible early-career researchers may submit a proposal for the EXCELLENT PAPER IN NEUROSCIENCE AWARD – BIOMEDICAL CALL. The proposal must be submitted by email using the on-line PDF form available through the NEURON web page. Both pre- and postdoctoral early-career researchers working in ERA-NET NEURON partner countries are encouraged to apply.

Applications are only accepted from the sole first author of an original peer-reviewed research article. The on-line application must include the following information bundled in one single PDF format attachment.

1) Introduction (minimum font size 11, Arial/Calibri/Times or comparable) including the following:

• Application form (of the first author)
• One-page short biosketch of the author
• One-page summary addressing the significance of the work
• A pitch of not more than 250 characters (including spaces) describing the research focus of the article and the applicant’s role in it.

2) PDF of the original research article (published within the eligible award period)

The deadline for applications is October 15th, 2025, Applications must be sent by email to the ERA-NET NEURON EPNA joint call secretariat (see details in the application form) by 5:00 PM (UTC-GMT). Incomplete or late applications will be automatically rejected.

5. Evaluation

ERA-NET NEURON partners will select the proposals upon consultation of high-level scientists in the neuroscience field. The proposals will be evaluated as a whole, based on the following criteria:

• theoretical approach and scientific quality
• novelty and innovativeness of research,
• scientific and societal impact for the area
• contribution of the ECR to the research discovery.

The aforementioned criteria should be reflected through all different sections of the proposal.

Based on the evaluation, the highest-ranked proposal will be awarded the prize.

6. Management

The ERA-NET NEURON EPNA Joint Call Secretariat together with the national funding agencies will be responsible for the management of the evaluation process.
The Joint Call Secretariat will inform the applicants about the decisions individually in early 2026.

7. Award Presentation/Recognition

The winner will be awarded at the FENS Forum on July 6-10, 2026, in Barcelona, Spain. The winner may also be invited to present at ERA-NET NEURON networking events and contribute to the planning of the future support activities of the early-career researchers (ECR) or other activities within the NEURON network.

8. Call Schedule

9. National Contact points

For further information, follow the links below or contact your national representative:

Table 1: List of all the eligible countries for this call

Country	Contact person	Contact information
Australia	Dr. Kirilly Agnew	National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) international@nhmrc.gov.au www.nhmrc.gov.au
Belgium (Flanders)	Dr. Kristien Peeters Mr. Toon Monbaliu	Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) eranet@fwo.be www.fwo.be
Belgium (French-speaking community)	Dr. Florence Quist	Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS (F.R.S.-FNRS) florence.quist@frs-fnrs.be www.frs-fnrs.be
Canada (Québec)	Mr. Maxime Beaudoin	Fonds de recherche du Québec - secteur Santé (FRQ) Maxime.Beaudoin@frq.gouv.qc.ca www.frq.gouv.qc.ca/
Croatia	Mr. Mateo Ante Bosnić	Ministarstvo Znanosti I Obrazovanja (MZO) MateoAnte.Bosnic@mzo.hr https://mzo.gov.hr/en
Estland Estonia	Mr. Argo Soon	Eesti Teadusagentuur (Estonian Research Council, ETAG) Argo.Soon@etag.ee www.etag.ee
Finland	Dr. Aki Salo	Academy of Finland (AKA) aki.salo@aka.fi www.aka.fi
France	Dr. Catherine Marquer	National Research Agency (ANR) Health & Biology Department catherine.marquer@agencerecherche.fr www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr
	Prof. Dr. Bernard Poulain	Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) bernard.poulain@cnrs-dir.fr http://www.cnrs.fr/
	Dre Véronique Sgambato	INSERM veronique.sgambato@inserm.fr www.inserm.fr
Germany	Dr. Christina Müller	German Programme Management Health Research (DLR-PT) neuron-eranet@dlr.de www.gesundheitsforschung-bmftr.de
Hungary	Dr. Klára  Horváth	National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH) klara.horvath@nkfih.gov.hu nkfih.gov.hu/palyazoknak
Ireland	Dr. Amanda Daly	Health Research Board (HRB) Amanda.Daly@hrb.ie https://www.hrb.ie/
Israel	Dr. Liron Even-Faitelson	Chief Scientist Office, Ministry of Health (CSO-MOH) liron.ef@moh.gov.il www.health.gov.il
Italy	Dr. Chiara Ciccarelli	Ministero della Salute (IT-MOH) c.ciccarelli@sanita.it www.ministerosalute.it/
Latvia	Dr. Uldis Berkis	Latvian Council of Science (LZP) Uldis.Berkis@viaa.gov.lv www.lza.lv
Lithuania	Dr. Živilė Ruželė	Research Council of Lithuania (LMT) zivile.ruzele@lmt.lt www.lmt.lt/en
Norway	Dr. Alexandra Bjørk-Skaflestad	The Research Council of Norway (RCN) alb@rcn.no or alb@forskningsradet.no www.forskningsradet.no
Poland	Dr. Marcin Chmielewski	National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR) marcin.chmielewski@ncbr.gov.pl www.ncbir.pl
Portugal	Dr. Alexandre Mauricio	Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) Alexandre.Mauricio@fct.pt www.fct.pt
Romania	Prof. Mihaela Manole	CAROL DAVILA University of Medicine and Pharmacy/Neuroscience (UEFISCDI) Mihaela.manole@uefiscdi.ro www.uefiscdi.gov.ro
Slovakia	Dr. Katarina Bibova	Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS) bibova@up.upsav.sk www.sak.sk
Spain	Mrs. Esther Chacón	Agencia Estatal de Investigación – State Research Agency (AEI) neuron@aei.gob.es http://www.aei.gob.es/
	Mrs. Maria Cristina Nieto Garcia	National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII) mnieto@isciii.es http://www.isciii.es/
Switzerland	Dr. Francis Parlange	Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) francis.parlange@snf.ch www.snf.ch
Taiwan	Ms. Ching-Mei Tang	National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) cmtom@nstc.gov.tw https://www.nstc.gov.tw/?l=en
Turkey	Dr. Recep Emrah Çevik	The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) emrah.cevik@tubitak.gov.tr www.tubitak.gov.tr
UK	Dr. Bethan Davies	Medical Research Council (UK) Bethan.Davies@mrc.ukri.org