The British Heart Foundation announced at this year’s ESC (European Society of Cardiology) Congress it’s launching the Big Beat Challenge, a research award that will throw £30 million—nearly $40 million—behind an innovation that could change the future of cardiovascular medicine.
On its site, the BHF calls the challenge an award “for the world’s greatest minds to tackle the world’s biggest killers.” The foundation is calling for ideas that are radical, ambitious and diverse.
“We’ve made great progress over the last 60 years in understanding and tackling many heart and circulatory diseases, and I am proud that BHF-funded research has made a substantial contribution to this success,” Nilesh Samani, medical director for the organization, said in a release. “But heart and circulatory diseases remain a major health problem worldwide, still causing one in three deaths globally.”
The World Health Organization estimates cardiovascular deaths will reach 23 million by 2030, he said.
The BHF is extending the Big Beat Challenge to scientists, clinicians, innovators and entrepreneurs—any team from any country, sector or discipline has a shot at the prize. But, Samani said, proposals must be transformative, clinically relevant and require a multidisciplinary approach that calls for the funding.
“The time is right for a radical approach,” Samani said. “With recent advances in areas all the way from genome editing to artificial intelligence, we have an unprecedented opportunity to exploit new ways of doing research that moves beyond incremental gains and accelerates breakthroughs.”
Anyone who’s interested in submitting a proposal for the Big Beat Challenge can find more information on the BHF’s dedicated website. First-stage applications will open in late 2018, and shortlisted projects will have an additional six months with seed funding to develop their final ideas before a winner is selected.
“This will be one of the largest awards of its kind,” Samani said. “It is without borders and without boundaries. The winning project will be truly transformative, and something that simply couldn’t happen without funding on this scale. The ideas can tackle any heart or circulatory condition using any approach. All we ask is that you think big.”
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.