Infrastructure initiatives

Infrastructure initiatives funding type is defined as the means to provide temporary funding and/or to play a facilitating role to existing or new infrastructure initiatives that support and enable scientific oncological research. The ultimate goal is to ensure that the expertise, resources and services made available by the infrastructure initiative will lead to concrete research results and applications (prevention, diagnosis and treatment strategies) for patients and the general public more often and more quickly.

 

The infrastructure initiative is required to have broad national support and to be nationally accessible.

 

KWF expects that, after its initial (financial) support, the infrastructure initiative will anticipate on its continuity and be implemented in a self-sustainable way.

The (financial) support provided by KWF is of temporary nature. KWF does not recognize as its own responsibility to play purely a long-term financial supporting role to the infrastructure initiatives.

 

In the previous calls (2017 and 2018) support has been provided to:
• data infrastructures for setting up of a FAIR “365 office suite“ for translational oncological research (i.e. TraIT2Health-RI); a data infrastructure focused on the linkage between data registries (i.e. GENONCO); and a data infrastructure to make available prospective standardized and multicentric-data from Dutch proton therapy centers (i.e. ProtraIT)
• biobanks and associated databases among which the BETER-REFLECT initiative for Hodgkin’s lymphoma; the DHCG biobank and data registry for hepatocellular cancer; and a multidisciplinary platform to centralize pre-clinical and translational research in ovarian cancer  (i.e. AOCR),
• Cohorts: the creation of a resource for patient-centered research into markers (risk factors) and underlying mechanisms of  health outcomes (Adolescents and Young Adults - AYA); and the expansion of the current PLCRC iniatitive (i.e. PLCRC-FLACON)
• an infrastructure for the generation and distribution of  genetically engineered mouse models (i.e. CustoMICE),
• a platform for the standardization of immuno analysis (i.e. N-CIA),
•  a facility for image-guided particle radiation (i.e. IMPACT)
and
• a platform for the harmonization of investigator initiated, multi-center clinical trials (i.e. DORP).

 

 

In the call 2019, KWF does not intend to support additional infrastructures similar in scope to those supported in 2017-2018. Instead, emphasis will be given to the following topics:

​• Drug discovery initiatives that exploit functional genomics or gene editing technologies to identify or validate new biological pathways and thereby facilitate drug discovery. To safeguard that the infrastructure initiative(s) has/have a national character, the project team should be composed of at least three different institutions.

• Data infrastructures for the analysis and integration of existent cohort(s) data under a single, umbrella initiative. The infrastructure initiative should be in transition to adopt well-curated and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data.