Pathways to Progress: Community Outreach and Family Engagement for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities

Decode the Immunoscience of age-related diseases is sponsored by European Commission — Horizon Europe. Expected Impact: The action under this topic is expected to achieve the following impacts: Accelerate EU access to more cost-effective interventions in an increasingly ageing population by identifying personalised treatment approaches for elderly-onset immune diseases. Decrease disease risk later in life by defining specific prevention strategies based on ageing biomarkers and risk factors. Halt age-associated disease exacerbation by the identification of predictive and digital biomarkers that can stratify patients for early intervention. Improve quality of life for healthy individuals and patients by preventing further health decline, avoiding escalating care costs, and properly stratifying individuals earlier in the diagnostic pathway. Accelerate adoption of innovative diagnostic, preventative, and therapeutic strategies, strengthening the EU’s position as a healthcare innovator. Evaluate digital biomarker as potential regulatory endpoints in the ultimate goal to develop medicines for ‘healthy ageing’. Integrate fragmented research efforts by bringing together health industry sectors and stakeholders to develop clinical and multi-omics data integration capabilities. Enable new data-driven research by building AI infrastructure on existing data and cohorts that no single organisation could develop independently Patients and citizens will benefit from improved medical practice and healthcare solutions, new targeted prevention strategies and ultimately healthier ageing. The action will support EU policy and priorities including the European Health Data Space Regulation (EHDS) and the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, while contributing to European competitiveness in addressing one of society's major challenges. Expected Outcome: The action under this topic must contribute to all of the following outcomes: Researchers will benefit from a better understanding of the potential causal links between chronic inflammatory diseases and biological ageing , and the predictiveness of the accompanying biomarkers could allow for the definition of precise risk profiles for age-associated immune disease onset and exacerbations. Patients will benefit from new early detection strategies as well as new diagnostic approaches to differentiate disease onset in elderly people from onset in younger adults . This will inform a personalised medicine approach to treatment and will in turn help to prevent disease progression. Patients and healthcare professionals will benefit from the repurposing or development of novel therapies for ageing populations with chronic inflammatory diseases and precision medicine approaches that prevent health decline while reducing healthcare costs. Researchers and industry will benefit from the establishment of systematic collaborative approaches for the use of available biobanks across age ranges , immune diseases and comorbidities to adopt innovative approaches (by integration of multi-omics, immunophenotyping, digital biomarkers, ageing clocks, and artificial intelligence (AI) with comprehensive patient information). Patients and healthcare professionals will benefit from deeper insights into treatment response and the evaluation of the impact of ageing on treatment effectiveness. Industry and researchers will benefit from the establishment of regulatory pathways for novel intervention strategies and biomarkers , leading to the faster clinical development of drugs that improve age-associated disease exacerbations, ultimately enabling the translation of research findings into therapeutic solutions for vulnerable patient populations. This includes the field of digital biomarkers and their use in monitoring activity, strength and fatigue as exemplary readouts. Scope: The global population is undergoing an unprecedented demographic shift, with the number of individuals aged 65 and older projected to double by 2050, presenting one of the most significant public health challenges of our time. The transition to an ageing society Programme areas: Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness, Health, Innovative Health Initiative, Horizon Europe (HORIZON) Keywords: Artificial intelligence, Biomarkers, Chronic diseases, Immunology, Innate immunity and inflammation, Molecular biology, Decode the Immunoscience of age-related diseases, IHI, IHI JU, Innovative Health Initiative, Innovative Health Initiative Joint Undertaking, Joint Undertaking Deadline stages: 2026-10-08, 2027-04-21

The National Science Foundation (NSF) plays a prominent role in the improvement of undergraduate STEM education at the Nation’s colleges and universities. Through the IUSE: Innovation in Two-Year College STEM Education (ITYC) program, the agency seeks to extend this effort by making an intentional investment in the country’s two-year institutions of higher education, or two-year colleges. The twin goals of the ITYC program are to (1) center students in the effort to advance innovation and promote success in STEM education at two-year colleges, and (2) enhance the capacity of two-year colleges to harness the talent and potential of their student and faculty populations through innovative disciplinary, multi-department, and college-wide efforts. These goals will be achieved by investing in projects at two-year colleges that contribute to student success in STEM-based foundational courses and academic pathways for both majors and non-majors. Project activities may be in any discipline that is currently supported by NSF funding, which includes the social, behavioral, and economic sciences. Collectively, projects in the ITYC program will make progress towards ensuring that two-year college students and faculty have the resources to participate in and contribute to the broader STEM enterprise. Aligned with the goals above, the ITYC program features two tracks: (1) A Focus on the Academic Experiences of Two-Year College Students and (2) Leveraging Two-Year College Strengths and Innovation. Each Track can support projects requesting up to $500,000 for a duration of up to three years. For institutions that have not received NSF funding in the past five years, an additional $100,000 may be added to the budget which may be used by the institution to support and carry out grant-funded activities over four years. This would result in a total maximum budget of $600,000 for a project over four years. Institutions that have been funded as part of a collaborative award with their own NSF Award Number are not eligible for this incentive, however, institutions that have had a subaward from another institution are eligible. This program is open to two-year colleges, which includes the following institutions, as described by Carnegie Classifications: Associate’s Colleges: Institutions at which the highest-level degree awarded is an associate degree. This may include transfer as well a career and technical oriented colleges. Baccalaureate / Associate’s Colleges: Institutions that award at least one baccalaureate degree but confer at least 50% of their degrees at the associate level. The ITYC program is aligned with NSF's Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) framework, which is a comprehensive effort to accelerate improvements in the quality and effectiveness of undergraduate education in STEM fields. Funding Opportunity Number: 23-584. Assistance Listing: 47.076. Funding Instrument: G. Category: ST. Award Amount: $10M total program funding.