Bern Medtech Collaboration Call 2024

Eligible participants: Researchers who are members of the medical faculty of the University of Bern and/or Insel Gruppe AG

Maximum project duration: 36 months

Maximum project budget: CHF 300’000

Evaluation criteria:

• Projects must be in collaboration with CSEM.
• Projects being related to CSEM Medtech technologies are preferred.
• Project proposals must be submitted in English and shall not exceed 5 pages, including references.

Other required information:

• Project title/acronym.
• Principal Investigator (name, affiliation) and, if applicable, indication of other institutes involved and their respective main contact person.
• CSEM main contact person.
• Estimated start date and estimated duration of the project in months.
• Requested funds in CHF.

Submission deadline: Sunday, October 15, 2023

Submission: Proposals must be marked as confidential and be submitted by email (see Submit Proposal button below). Notice that no automatic acknowledgment of receipt will be sent after submission.

Applicants are welcome to contact CSEM for information and advice on preparing their proposal(s) and to request the template to be used in preparing a project proposal.

The Evaluation Committee, which according to the above-mentioned Collaboration Agreement consists of one representative each from INSEL (currently Prof. Dr. Thomas Geiser) and UniBE (currently Prof. Dr. Hugues Abriel) and two representatives from CSEM (currently Jens Krauss and Josef Hayoz), evaluates the submitted project proposals with the support of 15 experts as follows:

• A few days after the submission deadline, the Evaluation Committee assigns each proposal to a clinical/medical expert and a technical expert for review, with each of the 15 experts allowed to view all proposals but required to thoroughly review only those assigned to him or her.
• In a meeting towards the end of November 2023, the two experts who have reviewed a proposal will briefly present it to the Evaluation Committee and the other participating experts and make a reasoned recommendation to accept/reject the proposal.
• In a follow-up meeting to be held before the end of November 2023, the Evaluation Committee will then decide on the acceptance or rejection of the individual proposals.
• Before mid-December, all applicants will be informed whether their proposal has been accepted or rejected and, in case of acceptance, whether the requested funds have been granted in full or only in part.

The content of each proposal will be treated as confidential by all persons involved in the evaluation process.

Mandatory project reporting

Mandatory project reporting is to be made

• in English and in scientific quality and to be submitted timely to the CSEM main contact person
  The Evaluation Committee reserves the right to reject reports of insufficient quality and to stop the project in case of repeated submission of reports of insufficient quality.
• by 15th January of each year for the project activities of the previous year
  It should be noted that the Evaluation Committee will use the year-end reports to prepare the annual report that it must submit to the Canton of Bern by the end of January each year. Therefore, the year-end reports should be rather short and concise (max 3 pages). The specifications for the year-end reports (scope, format, etc.) will be available from the Evaluation Committee in early December of each year at the latest.
• at the end of the project
  Project-end reports should be detailed and should make reference to scientific publications, patents, outcome, valorization potential, next steps, etc. The specifications for the project-end reports (scope, format, etc.) will be available from the Evaluation Committee in early December of each year at the latest.
• of project meetings
  It is expected that the project teams execute a formal project kick-off meeting and a formal project close-out meeting, with meeting minutes to be sent to the Evaluation Committee.

Project costs

Project costs are paid in multiple portions, the number of which depends on the actual project start date and the planned project duration. For example, for a project that begins in April 2024 and is planned to last for 28 months, the costs will be distributed in four portions, each accounting for 25% of the total accepted project costs. These portions will be distributed as follows: one at the project’s commencement, one at the end of 2024, one at the end of 2025 and a final portion upon the project’s completion.

Important Note:  If the completion of a project is delayed to a subsequent year compared to the original plan, the final portion will only be paid upon the project's completion.

The disbursement of these individual portions of project costs on the specified dates is subject to the reporting obligations explained above.

Invoices for project costs should be addressed to "CSEM SA - Rue Jaquet-Droz 1 - 2002 Neuchâtel". Invoices should indicate the project name, the project acronym, and the proportion of costs being invoiced. These invoices should be submitted to Josef Hayoz, who acts as a CSEM representative on the Evaluation Committee.

General Collaboration Rules

Please note that the rules of the collaboration between CSEM and - depending on the case - UniBE and/or INSEL in the context of projects funded from the collaboration credit are regulated in the above-mentioned Collaboration Agreement. Such rules are available upon request from the members of the Evaluation Committee.

Your agreement with the project conditions

Please note that by submitting your project proposal, you confirm in your capacity as Principal Investigator (i) that you have taken note of the information provided above and (ii) that you undertake to comply with their provisions and, in particular, to submit the required project reports in a timely manner.