Sarcomas are among the leading causes of cancer-related death in children—typically ranking second or third. Despite this burden, treatments for most sarcomas have seen little to no significant improvement over the past 40 years. To address these urgent unmet needs, the FIGHT KIDS CANCER Programme Committee has dedicated the 2025–2026 Call exclusively to paediatric bone or soft tissue sarcomas.
The 2026-2027 Call will again be open to all types of paediatric cancers.
Following the success of last year’s call, this sarcoma exclusive call will continue to give more flexibility to the applying teams. Thus, the possible amount available and duration per grant application will be the following:
For clinical trials:
- Up to 5 years
- Up to 5 million euros
For a clinical trial preparation grants:
- Up to 2 years
- Up to 0.25 million €
For translation research projects:
- Up to 4 years
- Up to 2 million €
As flexibility is the key motivation for the modification of the grants’ duration and amount, the grant amounts and durations indicated represent the maximum that FIGHT KIDS CANCER will fund per project. Applicants should only request funding amounts that accurately reflects their project’s actual needs. Applications will also be assessed on their efficient use of funds and time: both shorter, less expensive projects and longer, more costly ones are equally welcome, provided they demonstrate a clear impact for patients and make judicious use of resources.
The FIGHT KIDS CANCER secretariat at European Science Foundation is at the applicant’s disposal for their questions.
FIGHT KIDS CANCER aims to catalyse and support pan-European leading-edge research initiatives in paediatric cancer to develop innovative approaches to improve the outcome for all children and adolescents with cancer.
This call will cover the following non-exclusive objectives:
- Realise real impact on young patients,
- Improve survival rates and reduce toxicity to restore young patients to full health after treatment,
- Advance fundamental knowledge of paediatric malignancies,
- Support improved interdisciplinary research, methods and collaborations for tackling the issues of today,
- Strengthen collaboration and the development of scientific capacity across Europe.
FIGHT KIDS CANCER aims towards overcoming the structural lack of research dedicated to paediatric cancers by ensuring a recurring endowment that will be granted to the best European research projects every year. An additional ambition is to foster closer working ties between clinical and laboratory researchers.
Deadline: 17 October 2025, 12:00 CEST