Research project Kom op tegen Kanker

In the context of the ‘Kom op tegen Kanker’ campaign, the FWO has a yearly budget of € 805,101  available (overhead excluded), to support  patient-oriented research projects with a specific scope. For the 2025 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. Hence, the patient's opinion is taken into account. Therefore, patient representatives have a voice in decision making. The scientific experts of the jury KOTK and the members of the KOTK patient committee will select by consensus scientifically excellent, patient-oriented project proposals for financing. To ensure that patients can participate in the discussion in an informed manner, applicants can also respond to the comments of the patient committee in the rebuttal letter.

• 15 January 2025: call opens
• March 2025: 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 2025 at 5 pm: call closes (last application date via FWO e-portal by main host institution)
• 8-19 September 2025: rebuttal phase (in writing)
• 19 September 2025 at 23h59: end of rebuttal phase (last application date via FWO e-portal by promoter-spokesperson)
• November 2025: (online) jury meeting
• 18 December 2025: announcement of results
• 1 January 2026: start of project
• January 2026: receiving feedback

• Duration: 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.
• 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.
  • Next to the online application in the e-portal a specific form (Word-template) has to be submitted which will be evaluated by Kom op tegen Kanker's patients committee. This committee will participate in decision making.
  • Success rate 2024: 36%

• 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.
• 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 8 and 19 September 2025. 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 8 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 : From this call on it is more explicitly highlighted than before how results in the past or the future related to Open Science (such as datasets, research software, but also ‘grey literature’ a.o.) can be mentioned and can contribute to the quality of the proposal. See the CV, the section ‘Research methodology and work plan’, an extra question on the data management plan (DMP), clarification on the ‘requested funding’, but also elsewhere in the application this topic can be covered.

• NEW : From 2025 onwards the online FWO application form will contain 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. On Tuesday 11/02/2025 a specific online info session on FWO’s research security policy will be organized. Subscribe here.

• A dedicated jury of scientific experts and the patient committee KOTK evaluates your application.
• 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.