19 projects to foster multidisciplinary research in gender medicine and health (NRP 83)
Following recommendation by the Steering Committee, the Research Council has decided to grant 19 projects for a total budget of 9.6 Mio CHF, to foster research in gender medicine and health. The projects will start in early 2025.
Clinical studies, medical education, AI, mental health, ethics, prevention, epidemiology are all coming together to reduce biases on Sex (biological attributes) and gender (sociocultural factors) in the Swiss health system. Of the 32 pre-selected projects, 19 have finally been granted for a total budget of 9.6 million CHF.
The aim of the national research programme NRP 83 ‘Gender Medicine and Health’ is to create a knowledge base for an evidence-based implementation of sex/gender aspects in health research, medicine, and public health in Switzerland. The programme will bring together researchers from universities and universities of applied science for 4 years and create a community of practice together with stakeholders. With a high level of multidisciplinarity across social and medical sciences and a real-world focus, this NRP is fostering excellence through diversity. Starting in January-April 2025, the programme will peak on the fifth year with knowledge exchange activities.
For NRP 83, a total of 140 pre-proposals from disciplines in the humanities and social sciences and life and clinical sciences were submitted in Spring 2024 and evaluated by an international panel. Of these, 32 were invited to submit a full proposal; all responded. All 32 proposals were comprehensively evaluated by at least two external reviewers and the NRP 83 Steering Committee. The evaluators assessed the scientific quality of the projects and their relevance for the political sphere and society at large, as well as the potential transferability of the results to the practical field and the coverage of different topics. With the available budget, the Steering Committee made choices with the objective to best cover the different themes and fulfil the objectives of the NRP.