HIVERA · Harmonizing, Integrating and Vitalizing European Research on hiv/Aids

HIV infection is a major worldwide epidemic threatening public health in all affected countries. Although a wide range of financial support has been successfully dedicated to HIV through national and/or EC-funded programmes, there is still little cooperation between national funding programmes in Europe, while this field is highly international, operationally as well as competitively, in all disciplines of basic, clinical, epidemiology and social sciences. The absence of programme coordination in a context of economic crisis is an important hurdle to confront the emergence of major new questions. Therefore, HIVERA is proposed as a dedicated ERA-NET paving the way for the coordination and cooperation of national programmes, starting first in 8 countries (BE, DE, EE, FR, IT, PT, RO, TR), but flexible enough to integrate new Member States by the end of the Grant duration. During the lifetime of HIVERA, the following actions are intended: exchange of information about participants and programmes, identification of common needs, thorough analyses of synergies and complementarities (data collection, workshops, exchange of programme managers); Preparation and implementation of two joint calls for future joint funding activities and programme opening, with emerging issues in HIV/AIDS as thematic priority; strengthening collaboration between partners of the ERA-Net, including the exchange of researchers and access to facilities; quality assurance for the implementation of common calls and the evaluation of funded research programmes (development of standards); creation of a platform for programme managers and researchers as an interface between science and funding policy to feed into future national and European funding programmes. Duplicating existing European activities will be avoided by actively linking up HIVERA with ongoing existing networks and the EDCTP, and by concentrating pilot joint calls on emerging issues in HIV/AIDS.