International funding opportunities

Active and Assisted Living Program (AAL)

Operating Grant: Active and Assisted Living Program

EU Joint Programming Initiative - More Years, Better Lives (JPI MYBL)

Call for proposals

Major demographic change is taking place internationally, potentially increasing inequality and altering the relationship between generations. By providing an opportunity for European and Canadian transnational collaboration, this call seeks to enhance our understanding of the effects of demographic change on the contract between generations and on societal inequalities.

This call has been developed under the JPI More Years Better Lives with the following funding organisations, who have indicated their commitment in participating:

• Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) represented by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG – Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft), Austria
• Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), Belgium
• The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Canada
• Academy of Finland (AKA), Finland
• French National Research Agency (ANR), France
• Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Germany
• Ministry of Education and Science - Latvia
• Research Council of Norway (RCN) - Norway
• State Agency for Research (AEI), Spain
• The Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE), Sweden
• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) – a part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

The call opened on May 18, 2020, and the funding opportunity will be up on ResearchNet in July 2020.

Interested applicants are encouraged to initiate scientific contacts with potential project consortium partners for applications.

Call Topic: Equality and Wellbeing across Generations

This Call 2020 “Equality and Wellbeing across Generations” aims to support policy in reducing inequality in the face of demographic change. The Call seeks proposals for research which will improve our understanding of how demographic change is altering the implicit contract between generations and how policy can ensure that change reduces inequality instead of increasing it. Specifically, the Call deals with three aspects of inequality:

1. Income and wealth: extending working life changes the distribution of income and wealth between generations. Income in later life is very unevenly distributed on the basis of previous employment, earnings, and the structure of different pension systems and different patterns of housing tenure. Changes in the costs of social care and the time people spend longer in retirement are affecting patterns of intergenerational inheritance.
2. Caring responsibilities: a high proportion of older people (particularly, but not exclusively women) undertake caring responsibilities for parents, children or partners. Caring can be emotionally rewarding, but can also seriously damage the mental and physical health of the carer, as well as diminish their employment opportunities.
3. Social and political participation: in many countries older people are more likely than young people to participate in formal political processes. However, their interests and concerns may still be underrepresented in political decision making. Older people are also more vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness. Their sense of identity and security can also be challenged as neighbourhoods change, becoming younger, or possibly poorer.

Relevance to COVID-19

CIHR and the other participating Funding Organisations acknowledge the relevance of the COVID-19 pandemic to the topic of this call. The pandemic has brought a refreshed focus on the relationship and inequalities between and within generations and on the responsibilities of generations to one another. The virus and the measures put in place to stop its spread are having differential impacts both between and within generations. This includes in key areas of daily life that are addressed as topics of this call - income and wealth, caring responsibilities, and social and political participation. The primary focus of proposals to this call should still be the research topics and cross-cutting issues set out in the call text above. However, proposals can, and where appropriate should, recognise the COVID-19 pandemic as an important contextual factor in the research that is proposed.

Each application may address one, two or all three of these topics, however, CIHR will only provide funding for “caring responsibilities”.

For questions regarding the call please contact the Joint Call Secretariat

Important dates:

Step 1 (Optional but encouraged): Expression of Interest (EOI) to MYBL by August 14, 2020

• Expression of Interest, in English only, to the Joint Call Secretariat via the Electronic Submission Platform. For more information, please consult the MYBL call.
• No documents need to be submitted to CIHR at this stage.

Step 2: Full Proposal (Full Application) to MYBL by September 14, 2020

• Full Proposals must be submitted to the Joint Call Secretariat via the Electronic Submission Platform. For more information, please consult the MYBL call
• Full Proposals must be submitted in English only.

Step 3: Abbreviated Application to CIHR by September 15, 2020

In addition to the consortium application submission to the JPI-MYBL, applicants applying for CIHR funding must complete an abbreviated CIHR application and submit it using ResearchNet. The purpose of this additional application to CIHR is to provide CIHR with an Operating Budget for the project, with the amounts quoted in Canadian dollars, a complete justification for funds requested, and a one-page research summary of the project. The abbreviated application submitted to CIHR can be submitted in either official language.

Date modified:

2020-06-25