ANR Announces Awardees for France 2030 University Hospital Institutes (IHU) November 2022 Call

ANR has announced the university hospital institutes in France that will be funded through its investment as part of the France 2030 programme. 10 of the proposals will receive between €20 million-€40 million to take on major healthcare challenges.

The Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR – National Research Agency) is a research funder operated by the French Government. Its goals include promoting creativity and openness as well as new ideas and partnerships, in particular between academia and industry.

As part of the France 2030 investment plan, the French Government devoted €1 billion to strengthen France’s medical research capacity. The University Hospital Institutes (IHU – Instituts-Hospitalo-Universitaires) programme seeks to create new institutes that will become future centres of excellence in research, care, training and transfer of technology in the field of healthcare in France.

Following the November 2022 call, a total of 12 proposals out of 21 submissions were awarded funding. Of those 12 proposals, 10 projects received IHU accreditation, receiving funding of €20 million-€40 million. These projects are dispersed around metropolitan France and represent a broad range of therapeutic areas, including cerebral vascular diseases, paediatric neurodevelopment disorders, onco-haematology, hearing disorders and sepsis. Funded projects of this type include:

  • VBHI, Bordeaux, maladies vasculaires cérébrales: This project is led by the University of Bordeaux (Stéphanie Debette) and has the aim of overcoming cerebral vascular diseases through shifting the paradigm regarding the prevention of strokes and dementia.
  • PRISM, Villejuif, oncologie: This project is led by the Centre National de Médecine de Précision en Oncologie (Fabrice André) and the Institut Gustave Roussy and is built on a consortium founded by IGR, l’INSERM, l’Université Paris Saclay, l’École CentraleSupélec and UNICANCER. The project is based in Villejuif and aims to be one of the largest centres in the world dedicated to cancer, comprising treatment, research, teaching and the promotion of solutions.
  • THEMA-2, Paris, hématologie: This project is led by the Institut Européen de la Leucémie (Hugues De Thé) and the Fondation de l’Université Paris-Cité. The central objective of this project is to radically transform the prognosis for leukaemia, with a view to achieving the disease’s elimination.

The two projects that did not receive IHU accreditation were awarded the IHU Emergent (Emerging IHU) label, alongside funding of €5 million plus a potential additional €5 million depending on the progression of the project. These projects represent topics of significant interest to public health, namely ageing and chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBS). These two projects are:

  • HealthAge, Toulouse, gérontologie et vieillissement: This project is led by the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse (Heike Bischoff-Ferrari) and is focused on geriatric health, with objectives that include ensuring the well-being of old people, strengthening the social capital of older generations and lowering the costs of healthcare by ensuring people can stay fit and healthy for longer.
  • INFINY, Nancy, maladies inflammatoires de l’intestin: This project is led by the Institut des maladies inflammatoires chroniques intestinales de Nancy (Laurent Peyrin-Biroulet) and the Fondation ID+ Lorraine. This project is the first integrated centre dedicated to IBS and aims to discover, test and disseminate innovations related to the condition to provide prevention and treatment solutions and to reverse the negative effects it causes.

Further information on the projects that received funding is available in a downloadable pamphlet on the November 2022 call page.

(This report was the subject of a ResearchConnect Newsflash.)