Bern Medtech Collaboration Call 2025 (BMCC2025)

Eligible participants: Researchers who are members of the medical faculty of UniBE and/or INSEL

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
• The content of formally correct proposals will be evaluated according to the following overarching criteria: (i) General consistency with the purpose of BMCC2025, (ii) feasibility, (iii) originality – prospects, and (iv) academic benefits

Other required information:

• Project title/acronym
• Leading institute and principal applicant / investigator, both of whom must be part of the medical faculty of UniBE or INSEL
• CSEM main contact person, i.e. the CSEM expert appointed by a CSEM representative of the Evaluation Committee to assist in the preparation of the proposal, and, if approved, usually also in the implementation of the project concerned
• If applicable, other involved institutes of the medical faculty of UniBE or INSEL and for each its main contact person
• If applicable, subcontractors involved and for each its main contact person. Please note that any subcontractor, whether natural or legal person, must be informed in writing by the principal applicant / investigator prior to the submission of the proposal that, by performing work under the project concerned, it agrees that (i) its background intellectual property (IP) may be used as necessary both during the project by all parties involved in the project and for the purpose of subsequent commercialization of the project results and (ii) that any new IP created during the project and any improvements / enhancements made to its background IP during the project will belong to the institution(s) from which institutes were involved in the project, i.e. UniBE and/or INSEL, as appropriate
• Estimated start date and estimated duration of the project in months. Please note that approved projects must start no later than the end of June of the year following the approval decision
• Requested funds in CHF.

Submission deadline: Friday, October 11, 2024

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

Interested, eligible participants are asked to contact CSEM to request the project proposal template and the form with the detailed formal and content-related evaluation criteria that will be used for the evaluation of the proposals. Furthermore, they are asked to make an appointment to discuss their project idea with a CSEM representative from the Evaluation Committee, who will then assign a CSEM expert suitable for the project topic as CSEM main contact person.

The Evaluation Committee, which according to the above-mentioned Collaboration Agreement consists of one representative each from INSEL (currently Danielle Krebs) 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 experts as follows:

• Within a few days after the submission deadline, the Evaluation Committee assigns each proposal to a clinical/medical expert from INSEL or the medical faculty of UniBE and a technical expert from CSEM for review, whereby the CSEM main contact person for a proposal may also be appointed as its technical expert.
• In a meeting towards the end of November 2024, the two experts who have reviewed a proposal will briefly present it to the Evaluation Committee and make a reasoned recommendation to accept/reject the proposal.
• In a follow-up meeting to be held before the end of November 2024, the Evaluation Committee will then decide on the acceptance or rejection of the individual proposals.
• Before mid-December 2024, 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. This decision of the Evaluation Committee will be final and cannot be contested. No feedback will be given as to why a proposal was accepted or rejected.

All experts involved in the evaluation process must undertake in advance to treat the proposals confidentially. In addition, all experts involved in the evaluation process must commit in advance to a Code of Conduct that requires them, among other, to inform the Evaluation Committee and not to conduct the evaluation in the event of a potential conflict of interest or other situation that could cast doubt on their ability to be impartial in the evaluation of a proposal. Since projects must be carried out in cooperation with CSEM due to the main purpose of BMCC2025, CSEM is a non-profit Swiss technology center and neither CSEM nor CSEM experts receive any funding or remuneration in connection with the BMCC2025, we would like to point out that the involvement of CSEM experts in the preparation of proposal, the evaluation of proposals, and the implementation of accepted projects does not constitute a conflict of interest.

Mandatory project reporting

Mandatory project reporting must be made

• in English and in scientific quality and must be submitted timely
  The Evaluation Committee reserves the right to reject reports of insufficient quality and to withhold payment of the project costs or even to stop a project if reports of insufficient quality are repeatedly submitted or if they are submitted more than one month late.
• 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 reports that it must submit to the Canton of Bern each year. Therefore, the year-end reports should be rather short and concise (max 3 pages).
• at the end of the project
  Project-end reports should be detailed and reference scientific publications, patents, outcome, valorization potential, next steps, etc...
• after project meetings in form of meeting minutes
  The project team is expected to conduct at least one formal project kick-off meeting and one formal project close-out meeting.

Payment of project costs

Project costs are paid in multiple installments, the number of which depends on the actual project start date and the planned project duration. For example, for a project that starts in April 2025 and has a planned duration of 28 months, the costs are divided into four equal installments of the total approved project costs. These four installments will be paid respectively after approval by a CSEM representative of the Evaluation Committee of (i) the minutes of the kick-off meeting, (ii) the 2025 year-end report, (iii) the 2026 year-end report and (iv) the project-end report and the minutes of the project-close out meeting.

Notice that if the completion of a project is postponed to a subsequent year compared with the planning, the last installment will not be paid until the project is completed.

Also notice, if applicable, that funding for requested positions, e.g., PhD positions, is limited to the duration specified in the approved budget. For the funding of positions beyond this period, you must secure the necessary funds yourself, e.g., if a dissertation takes longer than planned.

The disbursement of the individual installments of the project costs is subject to the fulfillment of the reporting obligations explained above as well as the transfer of the CHF 2.0 million mentioned at the beginning by the Canton of Bern to CSEM.

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 above-mentioned collaboration credit are regulated in the above-mentioned Collaboration Agreement, which is available upon request from your institution’s representative on the Evaluation Committee.

Your agreement with the project conditions

Please note that by submitting your project proposal, you confirm in your capacity as principal applicant / investigator (i) that you have taken note of BMCC related terms and conditions provided on this website and in the above-mentioned Collaboration Agreement and (ii) that you undertake to comply with their provisions.