HORIZON-JU-EDCTP3-2026-Scientific Leadership Man EU Prize

Objective:

1. Background

The EDCTP Prizes 2026-2027 are recognition prizes funded under Horizon Europe.

Prizes are financial contributions given as rewards following the publication of a contest. A ‘recognition prize’ is used to recognise past achievements and outstanding work after it has been performed, whereas an ‘inducement prize’ is used to spur investment in a given direction, by specifying a target prior to the performance of the work.

Applications will have to clearly state the involvement of the applicants in the research and innovation activities within the remit of the Global Health EDCTP3 programme. Applicants will have to provide proof of eligibility and a written presentation of the achievements, which will be presented to an independent panel of experts for evaluation.

The amounts of the prizes are specified in section 3. They are not linked to the costs incurred by the winner.

2. EDCTP3 Prizes 2026 and related award criteria

The prizes will be awarded to the entry that, in the opinion of the independent expert jury, demonstrates having best addressed the cumulative criteria specified under the respective descriptions below.

Applications will be graded on a total of 100 points. Where relevant, the number of points for each award criterion is indicated below.

Scientific Leadership Prize (four prizes)

These prizes will be awarded to four different profiles and aim to recognise growing mid-career scientists:

- Two Scientific Leadership Prizes (one woman and one man) for researchers who are permanent residents of an EU Member State or a country associated with the Horizon Europe programme;

- Two Scientific Leadership Prizes (one woman and one man) for researchers who are permanent residents of a sub-Saharan African country which is a constituent state of the EDCTP Association.

Award criteria

These prizes are awarded to the entries that best address the following cumulative criteria based on their application, that should also include a letter of support from other member(s) of the research community:

1. Scientific contribution and excellence: Contestants should have made significant achievements in their field and will continue to be leaders in their research field (50 points).
2. Impact: Contestants should have made major contributions to the objectives of the Global Health EDCTP3 programme to strengthen research capacity in sub-Saharan Africa and to support South-South and North-South networking (50 points).

3. Available budget

The prizes budget is:

• Four Scientific Leadership prizes: EUR 15,000 each.

4. Timetable and deadlines

As indicated in the Funding & Tenders Portal. Additional information on the Global Health EDCTP3 site

5. Admissibility and documents

Applications must be submitted before the contest deadline.

Applications must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are NOT possible.

Applications (including annexes and supporting documents) must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Submission System ( NOT the documents available on the Topic page — they are only for information).

Applications must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:

• Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the applicant (to be filled in directly online)
• Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the application (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded)
• mandatory annexes and supporting documents (to be uploaded):
  • letter(s) of support from a reputable scientist and short CV of the person providing the letter.
  • CV of the applicant(s).

Your application must be readable, accessible and printable.

Applications are limited to maximum 45 pages (Part B). Evaluators will not consider any additional pages.

The application must be submitted by the candidate and not by any other person supporting the candidate’s application. The letters of support of other persons may be included by the candidate as an annex in the application.

Each candidate must submit only one application - if several applications are submitted by the same candidate, only the last one chronologically will be taken into consideration.

You may be asked at a later stage for further documents (for legal entity validation, bank account validation, ethics review, declaration of honour, etc).

For more information about the submission process (including IT aspects), consult the Online Manual.

6. Eligibility rules for each prize

Eligible participants - Scientific Leadership Prize for a man resident of an EU Member State or a country associated with the Horizon Europe programme

In order to be eligible, the applicants must:

• be a natural person below 50 years old on the day of the launch of the contest;
• be established (residing) in the EU or a country associated to Horizon Europe;
• identify as male.

General rules

Applicants to all contests must register in the Participant Register — before the call deadline — and will have to be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation). For the validation, you will be requested to upload documents showing legal status and origin.

Current employees of Global Health EDCTP3, any EU institution, agency or body, the EDCTP Association or people serving on one of Global Health EDCTP3 or EDCTP Association advisory or governing bodies (including working groups) may not apply to any of the prizes nor provide letters of support for a specific application.

Applicants that have already received an EDCTP prize and may not receive a second prize for the same activities. This includes prizes awarded under EDCTP1, 2 and 3.

Applicants that have already received an EDCTP prize shall not receive a prize in the same prize category twice. This includes prizes awarded under EDCTP1, 2 and 3.

Specific cases

Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons.

Countries currently negotiating association agreements — Applicants from countries with ongoing negotiations may participate in the contest and may receive a prize if the relevant country has associated to Horizon Europe before the award.

EU restrictive measures — Special rules apply for certain entities (e.g. entities subject to EU restrictive measures under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) and entities covered by Commission Guidelines No 2013/C 205/05). Such entities are not eligible to participate in any capacity.

For more information, see Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment.

Eligible activities

Eligible activities are the ones set out in section 2 above.

Ethics and values

Activities must comply with the highest ethical standards and the applicable EU, international and national law on ethical principles.

Moreover, they must respect basic EU values (such as respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and human rights, including the rights of minorities).

In addition:

• No prize will be awarded for activities carried out outside the EU, if they are prohibited in all Member States.
• The participants must ensure that the activities have an exclusive focus on civil applications.
• The participants must ensure that the activities do not:
  1. aim at human cloning for reproductive purposes;
  2. intend to modify the genetic heritage of human beings which could make such changes heritable (except for research relating to cancer treatment of the gonads); or
  3. intend to create human embryos solely for the purpose of research or for the purpose of stem cell procurement, including by means of somatic cell nuclear transfer.
• Research activities involving human embryonic stem cells (HESC) are moreover subject to the conditions set out in the Statement of the Commission related to research activities involving human embryonic stem cells.
• The participants must respect the highest standards of research integrity – as set out, for instance, in the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.

Applications involving ethics issues will have to undergo an ethics review to authorise funding. Applications that did not respect the above ethical principles and standards may not be awarded a prize.

Security

Applications involving EU classified information must comply with Decision 2015/444^[1] and its implementing rules. Applications that are too security-sensitive may not be awarded a prize.

7. Exclusion

Applicants which are subject to an EU exclusion decision or in one of the following exclusion situations that bar them from receiving EU funding may NOT participate:

• bankruptcy, winding up, affairs administered by the courts, arrangement with creditors, suspended business activities or other similar procedures (including procedures for persons with unlimited liability for the applicant’s debts)
• in breach of social security or tax obligations (including if done by persons with unlimited liability for the applicant’s debts)
• guilty of grave professional misconduct (including if done by persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control, beneficial owners or persons who are essential for the award/implementation of the prize)
• committed fraud, corruption, links to a criminal organisation, money laundering, terrorism-related crimes (including terrorism financing), child labour or human trafficking (including if done by persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control, beneficial owners or persons who are essential for the award/implementation of the prize)
• shown significant deficiencies in complying with main obligations under an EU procurement contract, grant agreement, prize, expert contract, or similar (including if done by persons having powers of representation, decision‑making or control, beneficial owners or persons who are essential for the award/implementation of the prize)
• guilty of irregularities within the meaning of Article 1(2) of Regulation No 2988/95 (including if done by persons having powers of representation, decision‑making or control, beneficial owners or persons who are essential for the award/implementation of the prize)
• created under a different jurisdiction with the intent to circumvent fiscal, social or other legal obligations in the country of origin or created another entity with this purpose (including if done by persons having powers of representation, decision‑making or control, beneficial owners or persons who are essential for the award/implementation of the prize).

Applicants will also be refused if:

• during the award procedure they misrepresented information required as a condition for participating or failed to supply that information
• they were previously involved in the preparation of the contest and this entails a distortion of competition that cannot be remedied otherwise (conflict of interest).

8. Evaluation and award procedure

Applications will be subject to a formal evaluation by a panel of experts.

On the basis of the evaluation by the panel (and after the mandatory checks: ethics review, security scrutiny, legal entity validation, non-exclusion, double funding and plagiarism, etc), the awarding authority will decide on the award of the prize.

All applications will be informed about the evaluation result (evaluation result letter). Successful applications will be awarded the prize; the unsuccessful ones will be rejected.

The award ceremony for the Prizes 2026-2027 will take place during the EDCTP Forum 2027, which will be organised in Spain, from 5 to 9 April 2027.

If you believe that the evaluation procedure was flawed, you may submit a complaint (following the deadlines and procedures set out in the evaluation result letter). Please note that notifications are deemed to have been accessed (and received) 10 days after sending and that deadlines will be counted from then (see also Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions).

9. Other conditions

Payment arrangements

The prize money will be paid to the prize winners 30 days following the award ceremony, provided all the requested documents have been submitted. In case of a group of winners, the payment will be made to the lead applicant who must subsequently share the funds equally with all other members of the group.

Communication — Dissemination — Visibility of funding

Prize winners must promote the prize and its results, by providing targeted information to multiple audiences (including the media and the public) in a strategic and effective manner.

Communication activities related to the prize (including media interviews, press statements, presentations, etc., in electronic form, via traditional or social media, etc.), must acknowledge EU and JU support and display the European flag (emblem) and the Global Health EDCTP3 logo, and funding statement (translated into local languages, where appropriate).

The emblem and logo must remain distinct and separate and cannot be modified by adding other visual marks, brands or text.

Apart from the emblem and the logo, no other visual identity or logo may be used to highlight the EU support.

When displayed in association with other logos (e.g. of winners or sponsors), the emblem and the logo must be displayed at least as prominently and visibly as the other logos.

For the purposes of these obligations, the winners may use the emblem without first obtaining approval from the awarding authority. This does not, however, give them the right to exclusive use. Moreover, they may not appropriate the emblem or any similar trademark or logo, either by registration or by any other means.

Any communication or dissemination activity related to the prize must use factually accurate information.

Moreover, it must indicate the following disclaimer (translated into local languages where appropriate):

“Funded by the European Union and the EDCTP Association. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of Global Health EDCTP3 or its members. Neither Global Health EDCTP3 or its members may not be held responsible for them.”

IPR — Rights of use

The awarding authority does not obtain ownership of the results produced in the context of the prize.

The awarding authority has the right to use non-sensitive information relating to the prize and materials and documents received from the winners (such as pictures or audio-visual material, in paper or electronic form) for information, communication, dissemination and publicity purposes.

Photos and videos taken by the awarding authority either in preparation of the award ceremony or during the award ceremony are the sole property of the awarding authority.

Checks, audits and investigations

The awarding authority, the European Commission, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) and the European Court of Auditors (ECA) may carry out checks, audits and investigations in relation to the prize.

Withdrawal of the prize — Recovery of undue amounts

The awarding authority may withdraw the prize after its award and recover all payments made, if it finds out that:

• false information, fraud or corruption was used to obtain it
• the prize winners were not eligible or should have been excluded or
• the prize winners are in serious breach of their obligations under these Rules of Contest.

Non-liability of the JU

The JU shall not be held liable for any damage caused or sustained by any of the participants, including any damage caused to third parties as a consequence of or during the implementation of the activities related to the contest.

10. How to submit an application

All applications must be submitted directly online via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System. Paper applications are NOT accepted.

You can access the Portal here.

Submission is a 2-step process:

1) Create a user account and register yourself

To use the Submission System (the only way to apply), all participants need to create an EULogin user account.

Once you have an EULogin account, you can register yourself in the Participant Register. When your registration is finalised, you will receive a 9-digit participant identification code (PIC).

2) Submit the application

Access the Electronic Submission System via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section.

Submit your application in 3 parts, as follows:

• Part A includes administrative information about the applicant. Fill it in directly online
• Part B (description of the action) covers the technical content of the application. Download the mandatory word template from the Submission System, fill it in and upload it as a PDF file
• Annexes (if any; see section 5). Upload them as PDF files (single or multiple depending on the slots). Excel upload is sometimes possible, depending on the file type.

The application must keep to the page limits (see section 5); excess pages will be disregarded.

Documents must be uploaded to the right category in the Submission System otherwise the application may be considered incomplete and thus inadmissible.

The application must be submitted before the contest deadline (see section 4). After this deadline, the system is closed and applications can no longer be submitted.

Once the application is submitted, you will receive a confirmation e-mail (with date and time of your application). If you do not receive this confirmation e-mail, it means your application has NOT been submitted. If you believe this is due to a fault in the Submission System, you should immediately file a complaint via the IT Helpdesk webform, explaining the circumstances and attaching a copy of the application (and, if possible, screenshots to show what happened).

Details on processes and procedures are described in the Online Manual. The Online Manual also contains the links to FAQs and detailed instructions regarding the Portal Electronic Exchange System.

11. Help

Additional information can be found in the:

• Online Manual
• Prizes section of the Global Health EDCTP3 website: EDCTP Prizes - Global Health EDCTP3 JU
• FAQs on the Topic page (for call-specific questions in open calls; not applicable for actions by invitation)
• Portal FAQ (for general questions).

Contact

For individual questions on the Portal Submission System, please contact the IT Helpdesk.

Non-IT related questions should be sent to the following email address: applicants@global-health-edctp3.europa.eu

Please indicate clearly the reference of the call and topic to which your question relates.

12. Important

• Don’t wait until the end — Complete your application sufficiently in advance of the deadline to avoid any last minute technical problems. Problems due to last minute submissions (e.g. congestion, etc.) will be entirely at your risk. Call deadlines can NOT be extended.
• Consult the Portal Topic page regularly. We will use it to publish updates and additional information on the call (call updates).
• Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Exchange System — By submitting the application, all applicants accept to use the electronic exchange system in accordance with the Portal Terms & Conditions.
• Registration — Before submitting the application, all applicants must be registered in the Participant Register. The participant identification code (PIC) (one per applicant) is mandatory for the Application Form.
• Joint applications — Joint applications by a group of applicants are admitted for the Oustanding Research Team Prize. In this case, you must appoint a lead applicant (coordinator) to submit the application and represent you towards the awarding authority. All applicants will be jointly responsible and must all fulfil and respect the conditions set out in these Rules of Contest.
• No double funding — There is a strict prohibition of double funding from the EU budget. Applications that have already received an EU prize cannot receive a second prize for the same activities.
• Resubmission — Applications may be changed and re-submitted until the deadline for submission. For first past the post prizes with cut-off dates, applications can be changed and re-submitted until the cut-off date; the re-submission may however let you use your position as first in place.
• Rejection — By submitting the application, all applicants accept the contest conditions set out in this these Rules of Contest (and the documents they refer to). Applications that do not comply with all the conditions will be rejected. This applies also to applicants: All applicants need to fulfil the criteria; if any of them does not, they must be replaced or the entire application will be rejected.
• Cancellation — The awarding authority may cancel the contest or decide not to award the prize — without any obligation to compensate participants (e.g. no applications, jury cannot determine winner, winner is not eligible or must be excluded, objectives have already been achieved, etc). In this case, you will be informed via a contest update.
• Transparency — In accordance with Article 38 of the EU Financial Regulation, information about EU prizes awarded and the winners (name, address and amount awarded) is published each year on the Europa website.
• The publication can exceptionally be waived (on reasoned and duly substantiated request), if there is a risk that the disclosure could jeopardise your rights and freedoms under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights or harm your commercial interests.
• Data protection — Any processing of personal data in the context of this prize will be done in accordance with Regulation 2018/1725. It will be processed solely for the purpose of evaluating your application (and subsequent management of your prize and, if needed, programme monitoring, evaluation and communication). Details are explained in the Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement.

By submitting the application, all applicants accept that the awarding authority will publish information on the finalists and winners.

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