ECRC Twinning Grant – CALL 2026

Funding collaborative translational research at Max Delbrück Center and Charité

The Twinning Grant Program empowers researchers at the Max Delbrück Center and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin to join forces across basic and clinical disciplines, turning complementary expertise into innovation with true therapeutic impact. By combining strengths and resources from both institutes, the program accelerates discoveries from the lab into clinical application.

The Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) is a joint endeavor of the Max Delbrück Center and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, dedicated to advancing translational research from basic discovery to clinical application.

Timeline

The call for the 2027 funding round will open in early June 2026. Application documents will be available on the website once the call opens.

What is the purpose of the Twinning Grant?

Through the new Twinning Grant Program, the ECRC aims to empower researchers at the MDC and the Charité to join forces across basic and clinical disciplines, turning complementary expertise into innovation with true therapeutic impact. By combining strengths and resources from both institutes, the program accelerates discoveries from the lab into clinical application.

The program is thematically open, but focused on promising projects with a clear focus on disease- and patient-relevant investigations. Each project reflects a convincing and equal partnership between one research group or platform technology of the MDC and one Charité research team. Successful applications are based on solid preliminary data and on a realistic research plan with clear translational goals, achievable within three years.

Who is eligible to apply?

Charité: Principal investigators with independent research group leader status

MDC: Research group leaders; leaders of technology platforms that hold a research status.

Currently these technology platforms are:

Omics & Data Analysis

Bioinformatics and Omics Data Science
Genomics
Proteomics
Metabolomics

Disease Models

Organoids
Pluripotent Stem Cells

MDC or Charité guest groups, research groups from associated partner institutions, or ECRC or BIH groups are not eligible for funding. This restriction also applies to PIs from MDC or Charité who hold a second affiliation with the ECRC or the BIH.

Each applicant can only submit one application. Institutional integration and funding of own position for the entire project duration must be documented.

What does the Twinning Grant offer?

The Twinning Grant provides an annual funding of 250,000 EUR for three years (0.75 Mio Euro in total). The funds can be used for personnel, consumables, travel costs, or other costs incurring in translational research.

Additional funding conditions:

for administrative reasons, funds must be spent within each fiscal year and cannot be carried over into the next year
delayed start or cost-neutral extension of the grant program are not possible
where applicable, scientific or technical staff of the ECRC may be assigned to the project as in-kind support

How to apply, and how will successful projects be selected?

The application process is organized by the ECRC. It is administrated by a grant manager and supervised by a scientific advisory board of five scientists from the ECRC (Intermediate Leadership), MDC (2), and Charité (2).

The selection process consists of a two-step process:

Letter of Interest (LOI)

Interested twinning teams are invited to submit a Letter of Interest, outlining their project proposal. Eligible LOIs will be graded by an internal reviewer board composed of 20 — 30 experts from MDC and Charité, selected by both faculties. Each application will receive four to five independent evaluations. The resulting score will determine the ranking of the application.

Each application consists of the LOI and a short biographical sketch of each applicant.

Full proposal and Symposium

Five to six shortlisted twinning teams will be invited to submit a full proposal, which will be assessed by a panel of external experts, based on the written applications and presentations in a public symposium.

Each application consists of the full proposal, a short biographical sketch of each applicant, and a budget account.

Resubmission of unsuccessful proposals is discouraged. Follow-up applications of previously funded projects will be considered as new applications.

What are the evaluation criteria?

Applications will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

Scientific quality and originality
Translational relevance and potential clinical impact
Strength and complementarity of the MDC — Charité collaboration
Feasibility and quality of the work plan
Qualification and documented expertise of the applicants

Additional Requirements and Conditions

All necessary ethical approvals as well as approval of animal research protocols must be in place before start of the project.
Funded projects have to comply with all institutional and regulatory requirements.

Contact

For further information, please visit the ECRC website at https://www.mdc-berlin.de/ecrc or contact ecrc-twinning-grant@charite.de.

Additional Information

Implementation and Location

Preferably, Twinning Projects are carried out at the ECRC on the Campus Buch to foster integration and collaboration within the ECRC faculty and to strengthen the center as joint MDC – Charité research hub. The ECRC will provide necessary space in multi-user labs and offices for all twinning programs, and ensure core infrastructure and technical support.

If mandated by the requirements of the grant program (e.g., access to patient cohorts or specialized technologies), twinning project may also be conducted at other campuses of the MDC or the Charité.

In any case, grant recipients joining the ECRC faculty are expected to actively contribute to the strategic and scientific development of the center.

Intellectual property

Intellectual property (IP) generated in Twinning Grant projects is governed by the existing ECRC Cooperation Agreement between MDC and Charité.

Handling, allocation, utilization, and commercialization of project-related IP must comply with the terms of the ECRC Cooperation Agreement.

Management Team and Scientific Advisory Board

Scientific Advisory Board

ECRC Directorate (interim)

Prof. Dr. Thomas Willnow and Prof. Dr. Ulrich Kintscher

MDC Representatives

Prof. Dr. Gabriele G. Schiattarella
Prof. Dr. Norbert Hübner

Charité Representatives

Prof. Dr. Britta Eickholt
Prof. Dr. Christoph Harms

Grant Managers

Susanne Wissler, ECRC
Dr. Claudia Eulenberg-Gustavus (Deputy, ECRC)

Monitoring and Evaluation

Funded PIs are expected to provide regular updates on their work in meetings of the ECRC faculty, the ECRC Steering Board meetings, or MDC and Charité faculties.

A final report will document key performance indicators, including publications, filed patents, conducted clinical studies, and completed doctoral theses. All project outcomes, scientific and budgetary, will be attributed to the ECRC.

Personnel

Personnel can be funded for a maximum period of three years. Extension of contracts in case of a successful follow-up twinning grant is not possible.
For PhD students, the project leader must confirm availability of follow-up funding to support completion of the dissertation after the three years twinning grant.

Employment within the project does not establish any claim for permanent employment.

The ECRC’s governing institutions, MDC and Charité, are responsible for verifying whether personnel can be employed on a fixed-term basis for the project as they bear all related employment law risks.

Project leaders must confirm in writing that all project staff works exclusively on activities directly related to the twinning project.

Principal investigators

Typically, principal investigators (PIs) of a twinning project are the heads of the two collaborating research groups. Alternatively, a senior postdoctoral researcher or clinician scientists from one of the two groups may act as the PI, in line with the mission of the ECRC to support the carriers of junior scientists. MDC technology platforms may participate as the MDC partner provided that the platform holds a research status.

Omics & Data Analysis

Bioinformatics and Omics Data Science
Genomics (MDC & BIH)
Proteomics (MDC & BIH)
Proteomics / Metabolomics

Disease Models

Organoids
Pluripotent Stem Cells

Funded PIs hold a project-related affiliation with the ECRC and are listed as ECRC faculty members. Grant recipients must list their ECRC affiliation and acknowledge ECRC funding in any publication reporting on the grant project.

Projected-funded staff is allocated to the ECRC.

Funding to relieve clinician scientists from their clinical duties (protected time) is not provided through the twinning grant program. For protected time, applicants are directed to the BIH Charité Clinician Scientist Program.

Regulatory Approvals