The Nordic Cancer Union (NCU) has awarded 16 grants totaling € 750.000 to cancer research in 2020. Grants are ranging from € 40.000 to € 65.000.
The NCU Research Grant Committee met on 1 December 2020, exceptionally in an online meeting. The members of the committee participating in the meeting were Eirikur Steingrimsson from Iceland, Johan Poulsen from Faroe Island, Klaus Elenius from Finland, Klas Kärre from Sweden and Tom K. Grimsrud from Norway. The committee evaluated 30 applications applying for a total amount of 4,821,440 million euros. In total, 750,000 euros were available for allocation, and 16 applications were recommended for a grant. This equals to a 53% success rate, similar to several previous years, but also indicates that in euros, only 15,6% of the applied funding was granted.
The Committee welcomed applications for several investigator-initiated clinical trials and registry-based epidemiological studies to be carried out in 3 to 5 Nordic countries, in accordance with the strategy of the NCU. As a specific disease category, hematological malignancies were well presented, similar to previous years. The overall quality of the applications was good, and the amount of resources applied for well-justified research greatly exceeded the budget reserved for allocation, resulting in a competitive research call.
The members of the Committee hope that the funding awarded will help to bring Nordic investigators together and take advantage of some of the unique opportunities for high-quality clinical, epidemiological, and translational cancer research only feasible within Nordic co-operation.
For more information about projects that received funding, please see NCU Research Grants Awarded 2020