UEFISCDI Transnational & ERA-NET Calls

ERDERA — European Rare Disease Research Alliance

Supports Romanian rare disease groups through ERDERA partnerships building stronger diagnostic and care innovation.

ERDERA 2026 is a joint transnational call organized by the European Rare Disease Research Alliance, coordinated by INSERM (France) under a partnership implementation period running from 2024 to 2032. The call addresses two priority topics: resolving the diagnosis of undiagnosed rare genetic diseases, and advancing research on complex multifactorial non-genetic rare diseases. Methodological approaches supported include functional validation of variants of uncertain significance, multi-omics profiling, advanced bioinformatics, AI and machine learning, and systems biology. UEFISCDI provides EUR 1,000,000 in Romanian national co-funding for Romanian participants in funded international consortia. The call was launched December 10, 2025; the pre-proposal deadline of February 12, 2026 has passed; the final proposal deadline is July 8, 2026.

Romanian applicants — spanning universities, research institutes, nonprofits, and for-profit biotech or medtech entities — must participate as part of an international ERDERA consortium. The EUR 1,000,000 Romanian national pool is distributed across all Romanian partners in funded projects following international scientific evaluation. No individual award cap per Romanian partner has been publicly stated. As the pre-proposal stage has closed, only teams that submitted a pre-proposal in February 2026 and were invited to full submission are eligible to proceed to the July 8 deadline.

ERDERA is the primary European funding vehicle for Romanian researchers working on genomics, functional biology, and AI-assisted diagnostics in the rare disease space. Institutions with existing INSERM or European rare disease network connections and prior experience in multi-omics or variant interpretation are best placed to compete. Romanian PIs at the full-proposal stage should focus on demonstrating functional validation capacity, access to rare disease patient cohorts, and the translational relevance of their diagnostic or mechanistic research goals.