Research project Kom op tegen Kanker

In the context of the ‘Kom op tegen Kanker’ campaign, the FWO has a yearly budget of € 1,645,000  available (overhead excluded), to support  patient-oriented research projects with a specific scope. For the 2026 call, the scope is: “Patient-oriented research that aims to improve the quality of life of (ex-)cancer patients during and after cancer treatment, by responding to their physical, mental and/or social needs. The research is conducted in co-creation with the target group and focuses on developing and providing new scientifically substantiated evidence that is of high quality and applicable in practice.”

With this call, the FWO supports patient-oriented research. Therefore, patient representatives have a voice in decision making. The scientific experts of the FWO jury and the members of the KOTK patient committee will select by consensus scientifically excellent, patient-oriented project proposals for financing. 

• 15 January 2026: call opens
• March 2026: internal deadlines (contact the responsible department of the host institution in a timely manner for the transfer of the application between promoter-spokesperson and host institution)
• 1 April 2026 at 5 pm: call closes (last application date via FWO e-portal by main host institution)
• 10-21 September 2026: rebuttal phase (in writing). NOTE: A separate rebuttal for the patient committee is submitted via email.
• 21 September 2026 at 23h59: end of rebuttal phase (last application date via FWO e-portal by promoter-spokesperson)
• November 2026: (online) jury meeting
• 17 December 2026: announcement of results
• 1 January 2027: start of project
• January 2027: receiving feedback

• New! Duration: in principle 4 years, minimum 2 years
• Staff and consumables: at least €50,000 per year for the entire project (including all partners) and at most €145,000 per year per participating institution, with the exception of the non-Flemish partners, who may receive up to 10% of the total budget for the project.
  • A supervisor-spokesperson or (co-)supervisor may represent several eligible institutions within the framework of the same project. In this case, the budgetary restrictions regarding staff and consumables as set out above apply to all institutions represented by that supervisor-spokesperson or (co-)supervisor together. In other words, you can apply for a maximum of €145,000 per year for all the institutions you represent. Institutions that you do not represent can each apply for the maximum amount of €145,000 separately.

    If your name appears in the application for several participating institutions, this will be interpreted as you representing those institutions. In that case, the budgetary restriction as indicated above will apply. If you belong to a particular institution that is involved in the application but is not represented by you, do not mention your name.

• Equipment: maximum €150,000 per project.
• Theme: “Patient-oriented research that aims to improve the quality of life of (ex-)cancer patients during and after cancer treatment, by responding to their physical, mental and/or social needs. The research is conducted in co-creation with the target group and focuses on developing and providing new scientifically substantiated evidence that is of high quality and applicable in practice.”
• NOTE: the humanitarian research projects such as these in the scope of Kom op tegen Kanker, differ in some substantial aspects from the fundamental research projects of FWO:
  • These projects will NOT distinguish between a junior or a senior project type;
  • These projects will NOT be taken into account for calculating the maximum number of projects for which one can be (co)-supervisor at a given time.
  • A specific panel of scientific experts composed by FWO will evaluate your application; it is not necessary to select a panel yourself from the regular FWO expert panels.
  • The application is evaluated by scientific experts and patient representatives. A research proposal is only eligible for funding if both parties agree.
  • Success rate 2025: 20%

• As a team of researchers you need funding for consumables, equipment and/or personnel.
• Your research will be carried out at an eligible Flemish main host institution, possibly in collaboration with other Flemish and/or federal research institutions (Article 7); a non-Flemish research institution may participate for at most 10 percent of the budget.
• Your research will be carried out under the supervision of a supervisor-spokesperson, possibly in collaboration with other (co-)supervisors (Article 10 - 12).
• Emeriti with 10% paid appointment can only act as co-supervisor.
• All material acquired with a grant for consumables/equipment of the FWO shall become the property of the university. If you want to use core facilities during the execution of your project, do make sure that the fees for that use are budgeted correctly in the consumables expenditure category.
• The host institution is the employer of staff remunerated on research projects.
• Supervisors and co-supervisors are not allowed any remuneration or accumulation with a remuneration on a research project.
• The real cost is used in the application when the name(s) of the researcher(s) is (are) already known. When the name(s) of the researcher(s) is (are) not yet known, indicative amounts may be used.
• You agree with the Research Integrity Clause

• The supervisor-spokesperson submits your proposal online.
• For the research projects in the context of Kom op tegen Kanker, patients (or patient representatives) will participate in the evaluation of the applications. For this stage of the evaluation applicants are required to explain the (envisaged) relevance and short-term impact of their project in a way that is understandable to non-experts. An extra form will be added to the application (see below, ‘Downloads’); this form will be read by the patients committee of Kom op tegen Kanker to evaluate the submitted projects. This patients committee will only address the afore mentioned aspects of the project, i.e. the relevance and short-term impact for patients.
• For the collaboration between institutions, consent is given in one of three ways:
  • Partners who can also be main host institution: their consent is sent directly to FWO.
  • Flemish partners who cannot be main host institution the supervisor-spokesperson collects the signed forms of consent from all these partners. With this declaration those institutions commit themselves to act as host institutions for the project and more specifically with respect to the research work that will be performed by their researchers in the project. The declarations from these institutions have to be uploaded as an attachment to the application form. Download the template for this declaration.
  • Non-Flemish partners: a collaboration agreement has to be made at latest 9 months after the start of the project and is stored by the Flemish main host institution.
• Each (co-)supervisor(-spokesperson) has to upload a CV. The template provided in the application form must be used.

• New! From this call onwards, you will find an additional question in the application form about the ‘substantive and/or conceptual contribution’ that the applicant(s) and possibly others have made to the research design and, where applicable, to the associated data collection and analysis and/or interpretation thereof. This concerns information that allows the evaluators to better understand the genesis of the research proposal. Sometimes questions are raised about the extent to which an applicant for a project or mandate has developed the proposal themselves or has (re)used existing ideas from other proposals. It is also a matter of ethics to acknowledge those who have contributed ideas and data, whether as co-applicants, researchers not involved in the application, or in any other capacity. However, this new section in the forms is not intended as a new criterion for scoring the application.

• Guidelines on formal requirements in application forms and accompanying documents of application programmes shall be strictly followed.  If these are violated, the application may be declared inadmissible.

• Start your application early! Don't wait until the last minute. Unforeseen situations can always arise, and you will be better able to anticipate if you have enough time.

• Your application is submitted to a number of external referees for evaluation.
• Rebuttal: You will be given the opportunity to react on the comments of the external referees, internal evaluators (members FWO expert panels) and patient committee between 10 and 21 September 2026. The supervisor-spokesperson of the application receives at the beginning of the rebuttal phase an invitation on the (primary) e-mail address as filled out in the FWO e-portal – this is the e-mail address by which the application is submitted to the supervisor-spokesperson’s main host institution. An invitation will be sent to this email address. Please also check your spam folder to make sure you do not miss this important message. 
  
  If you have not received a message from FWO by 10 September, the FWO should be informed as soon as possible.
  
  Team members involved in an application are strongly advised to make arrangements regarding the composition and submission of the rebuttal in case the promoter-spokesperson is not able to complete this task because of force-majeure. In any case, ‘force-majeure’ has to be proven by medical attestation or other relevant official documents.

• NEW! You will be invited to reply to the patient committee’s initial review with a separate rebuttal letter. FWO highly values the patient perspective, which is key for funding decisions. It is strongly recommended to answer their remarks clearly and fully. The response should be formulated in Dutch and emailed to med@fwo.be by the same deadline as the scientific rebuttal.

• The online FWO application form contains a specific tab 'Research Security'. Applicants are required, based on the topic of their research proposal, involved countries and foreign partners, to complete a set of questions regarding unwanted knowledge transfer, misuse of research results and/or interference. If as a result of this, your project proposal needs a research security approval, please contact the dedicated contact persons at your host institution immediately, preferably before the submission of your proposal.More information about Research Security may be found here on the FWO website; slides from a 2025 webinar about research security are here.

• A dedicated FWO jury of scientific experts and the patient committee KOTK jointly evaluate your application. Patient representatives will be present at the final selection meeting.
• The jury reports to the board of trustees.
• The board of trustees takes the final decision.
• Afterwards you will receive feedback on your application.

Contact med@fwo.be for requesting additional info and for specific questions.

For technical (IT) problems regarding e-portal and application modules send an email to the IT helpdesk: FWOhelpdesk@fwo.be.