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International challenge grant aiming to inspire Scotland’s researchers to help improve women’s cardiovascular health

International challenge grant aiming to inspire Scotland’s researchers to help improve women’s cardiovascular health

13th January 2025

Scotland’s researchers are being invited to apply to a new worldwide challenge aiming to transform women’s cardiovascular health with the help of a first-of-its-kind grant

The Global Cardiovascular Research Funders Forum (GCRFF) has launched the International Research Challenge with a letter of intent asked to be submitted by Wednesday 15 January before funding commences in May next year for successful applicants.

The NHS Research Scotland (NRS) Cardiovascular Network has described it as “a major grant announcement” with up to £8 million being awarded over five years and is urging researchers to get involved and help accelerate innovation and collaboration in women’s cardiovascular research.

The GCRFF says the grant “aims to fund the best science in the world and to support transformative research in women’s cardiovascular health, focusing on one or more areas that represent an unmet medical need of global relevance”.

The Forum believes it will “bring together experts from around the world to collaboratively execute a research programme delivering impacts that no single institution, country or continent could achieve on its own”.

Research proposals focused on women’s cardiovascular health are being invited in areas that are under-researched and/or that require greater understanding. Relevant research areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

  • Risk factors and prevention of cardiovascular disease across women’s life stages
  • Clinical diagnosis and treatment of conditions more prevalent or with worse outcomes among women
  • Sex-specific underlying mechanisms of cardiovascular disease in women

Professor Lis Neubeck, Clinical Champion of the NRS Cardiovascular Clinical Network, said: “It is vital that we continue to build and strengthen research capacity worldwide in this priority area.

“The research community must be ambitious in aiming to facilitate better understanding of, and identifying innovative solutions to, the challenges facing women’s heart health.

“That’s why this grant is so important to unlocking the potential for a better future for women while elevating the profile of cardiovascular risk which is often underestimated and under-treated in women compared to men.

“In fact, in Scotland alone, it is thought that 10 women die from heart attacks and heart disease in every day and are more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as breast cancer. They are also more likely than men to receive the wrong diagnosis and receive half as many heart treatments.

“Some 100,000 women across Scotland live with heart disease – one of the most common causes of death for the country’s female population.

“I would therefore urge our researchers to begin the GCRFF application process as soon as possible and target unmet need of global importance.”

Interested parties are invited to submit a letter of intent through the Fluxx portal with a full programme description offering additional information on application instructions.

The full application timeline is:

  • Letter of Intent (LOI) deadline — January 15, 2025, 8pm
  • Invitation for full application — April 30, 2025
  • Full application deadline — September 15, 2025, 8pm
  • Notice of decision — January 15, 2026
  • Public funding announcement — January 2026
  • Funding Agreements Execution — January-April 2026
  • Funding Start Date — May 1, 2026

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