27/10/2020
Call for research project

PNR-EST call for research projects on the topic “Environmental and Occupational Health”

From 22/10/2020 to 07/01/2021

On 22 October 2020, ANSES issued a call for research projects (CRP) on the topic "Environmental and Occupational Health".

Issued within the framework of the National Research Programme for Environmental and Occupational Health (PNR-EST), the aim of this call is to support public policy-making. It takes into account the research priorities of the national Environmental Health, Occupational Health, Cancer and Ecophyto plans.

The PNR-EST aims to encourage scientific communities to produce data of use in the different phases of health risk assessment, thereby bringing research and scientific expert appraisal closer together. The 2021 call for projects focuses on the assessment and analysis of environmental risks to human health, in the general and worker populations. It also supports projects on risks to ecosystems and the quality of different environments. It targets research questions raised by ANSES, the ministries and State agencies affected by these topics.

This call for projects is being financed by ANSES from budgets delegated by the Ministries of the Environment, Agriculture and Labour, together with several co-funding partners, including ADEME, ITMO Cancer from the AVIESAN alliance and the Ecophyto Plan.

The 2021 selection process will be divided into two stages:

  • an initial selection on the basis of letters of intent,
  • a second round of selection based on complete applications.

It involves two committees. The first includes researchers in charge of the scientific evaluation and selection of projects. The second, made up of funding bodies, the ministries concerned and other stakeholders, decides on the final list of projects to be financed from those short-listed by the scientific committee.

The call for projects and the research questions

The scope and conditions are described in the text of the CRP. It is accompanied by a list of research questions that have been identified as priority areas for potential users of this research. These questions are the topics that this call aims to document.

Note that certain questions are being given precedence this year as they are of key importance for the steering committee or relate to priorities of the co-funding partners. They are highlighted in red.

Project submission terms

Letters of intent and complete applications must be submitted using the Research and Scientific Watch platform: http://recherche.anses.fr

The platform for the submission of 2021 applications will be operational at the end of October 2020.  

Provisional timetable for the call

  • 22 October 2020: opening of the call.
  • 7 January 2021 at noon: deadline for submitting letters of intent.
  • February 2021: project sponsors informed of the initial selection results, based on the letters of intent.  
  • 6 April 2021 at noon: deadline for submitting complete applications.
  • September 2021: publication of the final selection results.

Update of 4 December 2020: Following the Ministry of the Environment's announcement of additional funding for projects on endocrine disruptors, the text of the general call for projects has been amended. To enable scientific teams to respond, the deadline for project submission has been postponed to 7 January 2021. The deadline for the specific "Radiofrequencies and health" call for projects remains 14 January 2020.

Letters of intent must be submitted online by the scientific project managers no later than 7 January 2021 at noon, French time.

For those whose letters of intent are selected, complete applications must be submitted by the scientific project managers:

1) Online, no later than 6 April 2021 at noon, French time. 
The time of the submission deadline must be respected.
Acknowledgement of receipt of electronic applications will be automatically sent to the scientific project managers.

2) Then through a certificate confirming receipt, which is issued by the platform after the application is submitted. This certificate should be returned by the project sponsor electronically, with all required signatures, no later than 11 May 2021.

Applications that are incomplete, received after the deadline or do not fulfil the eligibility criteria will not be evaluated.

For administrative or scientific information, please contact CRP support by e-mail or, if necessary, by telephone at: +33 (0)1 56 29 52 86

Practical recommendations

Before submission of the letter of intent or of the complete application, you should carefully read the text of the call, and in particular the "eligibility criteria" section and the annexes on the relevant research topics and "list of chargeable expenses".

Once finalised, submit the letter or the complete application to ANSES using the online platform (remember to click on the "soumettre" button). You are strongly advised not to wait until the deadline.