Call for projects

With "long COVID¹" and "post COVID²" a new type of disease has emerged in the course of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, which poses enormous challenges to the German healthcare system. The prevalence varies greatly depending on the study, ranging from 1-2% to 10-20%. Considering the large number of COVID-19 cases, a high number of long/post COVID patients is to be expected, even assuming low prevalences. The clinical picture of long/post COVID is diffuse, the symptoms are manifold, diagnosis and treatment are correspondingly difficult. In order to be able to diagnose and treat patients effectively, medicine and life sciences are dependent on comprehensive findings on the causes and course of long/post COVID diseases from basic, clinical, and health services research.

At the same time, the societal and social impact of the pandemic is becoming increasingly evident in almost all areas of life and work, and psychological impacts are also on the rise. In order to develop strategies for coping with the consequences of the pandemic, a coordinated bundling of interdisciplinary and complementary expertise is necessary.

Funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture, the COVID-19 Research Network of Lower Saxony (COFONI) was established in 2020 to address the acute course of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic through a coordinated bundling of interdisciplinary and complementary biomedical expertise (https://www.umg.eu/cofoni/). Given the multiple long-term impacts of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on individual health and society as a whole, the COFONI research network is expanding to include clinical, health care, and social science expertise and will support relevant interdisciplinary research projects in Lower Saxony.

_{¹ Symptoms last for four to 12 weeks}

_{² Symptoms last longer than 12 weeks and cannot be explained by other diagnoses}

Special requirements for funding

In addition to the scientific originality and thematic fit of the applications, cross-site cooperation of applicants from Lower Saxony is a prerequisite and is mandatory for funding. The combination of interdisciplinary and complementary expertise as well as a high translational potential are essential decision criteria. In the field of social sciences, the cooperation with biomedical disciplines is desired explicitly, and must be integrated into the project concept, at least in perspective. Interprofessional cooperation between research and practice, for example cooperation with professional societies, associations, health insurance companies or care institutions, can be taken into account.

The research projects must meet high scientific standards, be internationally competitive, and will be reviewed through a quality-assured selection process. Due to the relatively short project duration, existing data/cohorts should be used. The linking of already collected data as well as innovative evaluation aspects should be in the foreground.

The use of the central COFONI technology platform, which provides overlapping data and biobanks as well as methods and animal models for shared use (see Appendix 2 Technology platform), is desirable in suitable project proposals and the use of comparable resources outside COFONI has to be justified. For the involvement of the technology platform, the respective contact persons of the technology platform need to be contacted in advance to plan the according budget and resources (see Appendix 2 Technology platform).