Volkswagen Foundation: Global Issues – Preventing Pandemics: The Role of Human-Environmental Interactions

Aim: a reassessment of the relationship between humans and nature, considering the idea of planetary health. The key question to be addressed is: How do human and environmental systems interact, and how does this in consequence influence the emergence and spread of disease? To answer this question, funding is provided for research that addresses the complex societal and ecological dimensions of transmittable diseases to gain a better understanding of their connectivity, and to assess risks, conflicts, but also chances which come with these interdependencies: What are the underlying human-induced drivers, what are conducive or impeding structural frameworks and preconditions, how do perceptions of human-nature-relations influence human activities? And how can, on this basis, the emergence and spread of diseases be predicted and prevented?

Funding: Funding: Preparatory phase (1st stage): Up to 15 preparatory grants of up to EUR 10.000 may be awarded to shortlisted applicants who will be invited to submit a full proposal (2 nd stage application).

Project phase (2nd stage) Six to eight project grants of up to 1.5 million Euro each for a four-year duration may be awarded.

Please note consortia involving 3-5 researchers from at least 3 different countries (including at least one applicant from a German university/research institution and at least two from institutions in two different non-European Low and Middle Income Countries)

Contact Research Authority if planning to submit (overhead).

https://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/en/funding/our-funding-portfolio-at-a-glance/global-issues-preventing-pandemics-the-role-of-human-environmental-interactions