Competition and Funding / CQDM/Alsace BioValley Joint Program

General Information

Scope of the program

The main goal of the CQDM/Alsace BioValley joint program is to strengthen biomedical research in Quebec and Alsace by the alignment of international resources. This collaborative program also gives the opportunity for SME based in Quebec and Alsace to open up to new markets.

This program is not intended to fund research on new drugs for specific therapeutic segments. Rather, it is meant to finance the development of new technologies and processes that will have the power to facilitate the discovery or the development of new drugs.  

This program promotes creativity, innovation, multidisciplinarity and collaborative efforts between academic institutions and private organizations [biotech/contract research organizations (CRO)]. Please note that multinational pharmaceutical companies are not eligible to this program.

 

Duration and Amount of the Grant

  • Duration: Maximum 3 years
  • General terms of financing:
    • The research done in Quebec will be directly financed by the CQDM as a grant.

    A maximum of 700K$ could be attributed to the Quebec component.

    If needed, it is the CQDM’s right to make grant applications to secure some funding.

     

    • The research performed in Alsace could be funded by local authorities (European, national or local) and by Oséo (an agency that supports SMEs). The financial package will depend on the amount budgeted, and, most importantly, on the type and number of partners involved (academic/private).

    If possible, it is preferred that the funding request of the Alsace component be comparable to that of the Quebec component.

    This funding may take the form of grants or repayable advances, covering part of the project costs, according to European regulations.

     

  • Eligible costs: For more informations, see the guidelines

 

Intellectual Property

  • A research agreement must be signed by all research entities involved in the project within 3 months after the funding confirmation.
  • Intellectual property generated under this funding program will be managed according to the policies of the financial partners involved.
  • A license option will be granted to the CQDM industrial sponsors (the parent organization and its subsidiaries) for the use of all the results for R&D purposes only. The main conditions of the end-user license option will be negotiated before the beginning of the project and will take into account pre-existing IP as well as contribution from each party.
  • CQDM industrial sponsors will have no rights to commercialize the IP resulting from the project or the pre-existing IP.

For more informations, see the guidelines

 

Review and decision process

The scientific excellence, the applicability and the feasibility of the project will be evaluated by an external peer review committee nominated jointly by the CQDM and Alsace BioValley. The members of this committee will be chosen for their specific scientific and/or industrial expertise in the field of the submitted projects.

Evaluation criteria

The following criteria will be used for the evaluation of the applications:

  • scientific excellence
  • creativity and innovation
  • socio-economic impact of the project for the collaborators
  • clear deliverables, milestones and schedule
  • feasibility of the project (deliverables, timetable, human and financial resources)
  • capacity to generate applicable deliverables at the end of the project
  • potential of applications in drug research
    • direct impact on drug discovery or development
    • capacity to address important unmet needs
  • track record of the participants (principal investigator and co-investigators)
  • multidisciplinary and multi-organizational aspects of the research candidates

A strong emphasis will be put on the capacity to generate applicable results (after the funding period) with an immediate impact for biopharmaceutical research.

Given that this funding program implies large scale projects oriented towards applicable results that will require significant multidisciplinary resources, the project management aspect will also be an important criteria in the evaluation.

CQDM and Alsace BioValley will evaluate aspects linked to intellectual property, potential ethical problems, corporate information (in the case of private companies) as well as any potential risks that could jeopardize the research project.

The partners will orally present the project before a Scientific and Technical Review Committee which will meet in Alsace during the month of March 2012.