New UK-Swiss bilateral funding for clinical trials to open in 2025

International collaboration fuels innovation and helps advance clinical studies aiming to prevent, detect or treat disease. Multi-country clinical trials enable recruitment of a wider and more diverse population, as well as mutual access to expertise and facilities. This boosts the effectiveness of the studies and the applicability of the research findings.

The UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) are partnering on a bilateral call for clinical trials in areas of unmet need. Researchers are encouraged to begin assembling research groups as early as possible. To further these efforts, researchers can access support from the SNSF’s Scientific Exchanges scheme and the (NIHR) Research Support Service (RSS).

The NIHR and the SNSF will host a webinar on 9 January 2025 to provide researchers with more details about this bilateral funding opportunity.

Professor Lucy Chappell, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Chief Executive Officer of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), said: “International endeavours such as this partnership with the Swiss National Science Foundation foster innovative thinking and novel approaches to complex health and social care challenges. We see considerable benefit in encouraging an exchange of ideas that can further drive scientific advancements, support emerging researchers working collaboratively with colleagues, and enable a pooling of resources including expertise and equipment. This approach of bilateral collaboration accelerates research progress, with the aim of getting effective treatments to patients faster.”

Professor Matthias Egger, President of the SNSF Research Council, remarked: “The UK is a main partner country for the SNSF, and we are delighted about this new collaboration with NIHR. The bilateral call will strengthen clinical research in Switzerland and offer new international collaboration opportunities for our researchers to address important medical needs.”

International collaboration on clinical trials

Researchers from Switzerland and the UK can apply. This funding opportunity will support clinical studies that test the efficacy or the clinical and cost effectiveness of interventions. Studies can focus on any intervention used to diagnose, prevent or treat disease. There must already be sufficient evidence from earlier clinical studies in humans demonstrating that the proposed interventions might work. Expertise and trial recruitment must be spread across Switzerland and the UK. Applicants will be expected to describe how they will contribute to the development of research capacity and expertise of early and mid-career researchers, including the support package that will be made available to them.

The joint funding available for this call is 8.8 million Swiss francs. The SNSF and the NIHR will fund up to three high-quality, collaborative Swiss-UK clinical studies. Funding is available for trials up to five years in length. The SNSF and the NIHR will conduct a joint evaluation and review process. Each will fund the activities based in their respective country.

This collaboration will build on and benefit from the work of the Access Consortium to align regulatory requirements for therapeutics, of which both the British and Swiss regulatory agencies are members.

Assemble research teams and prepare proposals now

The call will open in April 2025, and the call specification can be viewed here. Researchers can start assembling multidisciplinary research teams and preparing their proposals now. The SNSF Scientific Exchanges funding scheme can assist in this process. Researchers from Switzerland can apply for smaller grants:

• to invite their UK partner(s) to Switzerland
• or to visit their partner(s) in the UK

These grants can fund meetings or workshops of up to five days or research visits of several months.

UK researchers can contact the NIHR RSS for free advice, support and expertise when developing their collaborative research applications. There is also a wide range of NIHR infrastructure support available. Researchers interested in this funding opportunity can register for the webinar on 9 January 2025 here.