Frontiers in T1D Cure 2026: Two €100,000 DiabetesCERO Grants for Preclinical and Translational Type 1 Diabetes Cure Research, With Letters of Intent Closing 31 August 2026

Frontiers in T1D Cure 2026: Two €100,000 DiabetesCERO Grants for Preclinical and Translational Type 1 Diabetes Cure Research, With Letters of Intent Closing 31 August 2026

Fundación DiabetesCERO, a Spanish patient-founded research foundation, has opened the second edition of Frontiers in T1D Cure: Advanced Grants for Leading Researchers. The call funds two projects at €100,000 each over two years, and it is unusually specific about what it will and will not pay for: this is money for preclinical and translational work aimed squarely at curing type 1 diabetes, not for managing it better.

That distinction matters more than the headline number. A great deal of type 1 diabetes funding worldwide goes to devices, closed-loop systems, insulin formulations, screening and diagnosis. DiabetesCERO has deliberately carved those out. If your research programme is about beta cell replacement, immune tolerance, regeneration, encapsulation, gene or cell therapy, or another curative therapeutic strategy that could plausibly move toward a drug or treatment, this call was written for you. If it is about a better sensor or a better insulin, it was not.

The first stage closes on 31 August 2026 and asks for a Letter of Intent rather than a full proposal, which keeps the entry cost low. Shortlisted applicants are invited in November 2026 to submit a full proposal in December, with results in March 2027 and funded projects starting in April 2027.

Key Details

What the Grant Actually Funds

Each award is €100,000, split evenly across two years. The foundation explicitly reserves the right to review project progress before releasing the second €50,000, checking that the milestones set out in the work plan are actually being met. Substantial changes to the plan must be communicated and justified.

Three exclusions shape what the budget can cover:

• No indirect costs or overheads. The rules state plainly that projects will not include any fees or overhead for the institution. Every euro goes into the science.
• No travel or conference registration. Do not put a conference line in the budget; it will not survive.
• Not a prize for finished work. The grant cannot be used to reward a project already completed.

What remains is the productive core: personnel, consumables, small materials, and outsourced services. In practice, €50,000 a year in a European lab typically covers a substantial share of a postdoc or technician salary plus reagents, or a heavier reagent and outsourcing load if the personnel are already funded. That framing is worth carrying into your budget: reviewers will be looking for a plan that is genuinely achievable at this scale, not a fragment of a much larger programme that only makes sense with money you do not have.

The grant is subject to whatever withholdings and taxes current legislation imposes, deducted from the endowment itself.

Who Should Apply

The call is aimed at consolidated researchers — the wording throughout the rules is about experienced investigators with innovative ideas, not early-career applicants building a first independent group. Concretely:

• You hold a doctorate and can show an innovative scientific and creative track record.
• You will be affiliated with a university, public research centre, private non-profit research centre, or hospital in the European Union at the time you sign the acceptance agreement.
• Your host institution is willing to endorse the project in writing and to sign the agreement regulating award and payment.

Two eligibility details catch people out. First, current DiabetesCERO grantees cannot apply. If you are already receiving support from the foundation, you are out of scope for this call. Second, other funding must be disclosed in the application, with the funder, the amount requested or received, and how those funds would be used. The foundation frames this positively: it wants to assess the multiplier effect of its money and how the project fits into broader initiatives. Disclosing a complementary national or EU grant and explaining clearly how the DiabetesCERO award does something the other funding cannot is a strength, not a liability. Concealing it is a genuine risk, since falsified or untruthful data is listed as grounds for early termination.

Note the geography carefully. The call page says the European Community; the rules say the European Union. Applicants in associated countries such as the UK, Switzerland or Norway should not assume eligibility — write to [email protected] before investing time in an application if your host sits outside the EU.

Scope: What Counts as Cure Research Here

The foundation is looking for “original projects directly related to front-edge investigation for the type 1 diabetes cure,” and it explicitly values the possibility of translating outcomes into biomedical, business, or hospital settings. Proof-of-concept proposals are compatible with the call.

The exclusion list is short and firm. Not funded: medical technologies, insulins, diagnostic methods, clinical studies, educational activities.

The practical test to apply to your own idea is whether the project moves a therapeutic strategy toward being a curative treatment. Work that restores or replaces endogenous insulin production, halts or reverses the autoimmune process, protects transplanted or regenerated beta cells, or establishes the mechanistic case for such an approach fits the frame. Work that improves how patients live with an ongoing insulin requirement does not — however valuable it is in its own right.

Because clinical studies are excluded, this is a preclinical and translational instrument. Two years and €100,000 is a realistic envelope for a mechanistic study, an animal model experiment, a proof-of-concept for a delivery or protection strategy, or the enabling work needed before a therapy could be taken further. Frame it as the step that unblocks the next stage rather than as a complete route to the clinic.

The Two-Stage Application Process

Stage 1: Letter of Intent, due 31 August 2026

Everything is submitted by email, in one message, to [email protected]. The subject line must be last-name-first-name-Frontiers26 — for example, Perez-Carlos-Frontiers26. Each attached document must be named last-name-first-name-doctype26, using the document type codes the foundation specifies.

The stage 1 package is:

1. Application form (Application26) — foundation template, covering general information and administrative contacts for the PI and the institution.
2. Acceptance letter from the supporting entity (Letter26) — one page, free format.
3. Standardised CV of the principal investigator (CV26) — foundation template, emphasising the last five years and the most significant work of the career.
4. Signed declaration (Declaration26) — one page, free format, explaining the criteria by which your application and project should be considered for this call.
5. Summary of the research group (Group26) — two pages, free format, covering expertise and scientific capacity.
6. Letter of Intent (LoI26) — foundation template, maximum eight A4 pages.

The Letter of Intent must contain, in order: project title and PI name; executive summary; a statement of whether the project is already funded elsewhere and whether any conflicts of interest exist; background, current status of the field and most relevant previous results; the research hypothesis; objectives, methodology, work plan and timelines; innovation, including how the project differs from similar research; and expected results, impact and applicability.

Templates for the application form, the first-stage proposal, the reduced CV and the full proposal are all downloadable from the official call page.

Stage 2: Full proposal, December 2026

Only shortlisted applicants proceed. The full proposal expands the LoI into an extended scientific report with a publishable executive summary, cited bibliography, scientific objectives, the technology required and the resources available at the host institution, the innovative aspects of the project and technologies used, potential impact for patients and the wider community, an explicit translational section on the future steps needed to advance the innovation toward potential drugs, a detailed work plan with methodology, milestones, deliverables and schedule, and a budget with detailed justification covering personnel, consumables and outsourcing.

How Proposals Are Scored

The evaluation committee combines members of the DiabetesCERO Scientific Committee with an independent panel of external expert evaluators — and, notably, people living with type 1 diabetes sit on that panel. Each project is assessed independently by three evaluators using standardised templates, and the weighted total determines the ranking.

Stage 1 (Letter of Intent) weights:

• Scientific and technical quality, originality and experimental design, including how well the proposal addresses the unmet need and how robust the innovative solution is — 45%
• Track record, experience and knowledge of the PI and team, plus the suitability of the host institution for optimal execution — 25%
• Degree of innovation, novelty, transfer potential and expected impact — 30%

Stage 2 (full proposal) weights:

• Scientific excellence — 30%
• Track record, experience and institutional suitability — 20%
• Innovation, novelty, transfer potential and expected impact — 25%
• Implementation and feasibility — 25%

Read those two tables side by side, because they tell you how to write each stage. At stage 1, 75% of the score sits on the idea — its quality and its novelty. Feasibility is not scored at all. At stage 2, feasibility appears as a quarter of the total and pure scientific quality drops to 30%. In other words: win the shortlist on the strength and originality of the science, then win the award on your ability to show it can actually be delivered in 24 months on €100,000.

The Scientific Committee itself is publicly named in the rules and includes Dr. Manuel Aguilar Diosdado (INIBICA), Dr. Luis Castaño González (Cruces University Hospital / Biocruces Bizkaia), Dr. Adolfo García-Ocaña (City of Hope, USA), Dr. Ramón Gomis de Barberá (IDIBAPS, UOC, Universitat de Barcelona), and Dr. Carmen Hurtado (Director of European Research at Breakthrough T1D, Belgium). That is a committee grounded in beta cell biology, endocrinology and translational diabetes funding — write for readers who know the field well and will not be impressed by generic claims of impact.

Preparation Strategy

Start with the eight-page limit, not the science. Eight pages for background, hypothesis, objectives, methodology, work plan, timelines, innovation and expected impact is tight. Draft the innovation and impact sections first, since together they carry 30% of the stage 1 score, then compress the background ruthlessly. Reviewers in this field do not need a primer on autoimmunity.

Name the unmet need explicitly. The 45% criterion is worded as “the suitability of the proposal to address the unmet need and the robustness of the innovative solution proposed.” Do not leave the reviewer to infer what gap you are filling. State it, then state why existing approaches have not closed it, then state what your approach does differently.

Take the differentiation question literally. The template asks how your research differs from similar projects. A concrete comparison against two or three named competing approaches reads far better than an assertion of novelty.

Get the institutional letter early. Research offices in August are thin on staff across much of Europe. The acceptance letter is only one page and free format, but you cannot submit without it, and the deadline falls at the end of the European holiday month. Request it in the first week you decide to apply.

Write the declaration deliberately. The one-page signed declaration explaining why your application should be considered is unusual and easy to treat as a formality. It is your only chance to speak directly to the committee about fit. Use it to connect your track record to this specific call rather than to restate the abstract.

Budget as if the second €50,000 is conditional, because it is. Structure the work plan so that year one produces a defensible milestone. The foundation reviews progress before releasing year two.

Sort ethics approval expectations now. Projects using experimental animals or biological samples from patients or donors must supply institutional Ethics Committee approval. This is a condition on the winning candidate rather than a stage 1 requirement, but with a March 2027 result and an April 2027 start, there is little slack.

Common Mistakes

• Submitting a scope-excluded project. Diagnostics, screening, insulin formulation, devices and clinical trials will not be funded no matter how strong the science.
• Ignoring the file-naming and email rules. One email, one subject format, one naming convention per attachment. Administrative sloppiness on a small foundation call is an avoidable own goal.
• Submitting in Spanish. All documents must be in English, Arial 12. Even the foundation’s own templates and downloadable rules are English-only.
• Putting overheads, travel or conferences in the budget. All three are explicitly excluded.
• Failing to disclose parallel funding. Disclosure is required, and the foundation reads complementarity as a positive.
• Applying while holding current DiabetesCERO support. Existing grantees are ineligible.
• Writing a stage 1 LoI that reads like a feasibility document. Feasibility carries no weight at stage 1. Save the granular work-plan detail for stage 2, where it is worth 25%.

Obligations if You Win

The recipient signs an acceptance agreement, and the host institution signs the document regulating award and payment. Within 15 days of receiving the grant, you must notify the foundation about how the funds will be used — human resources, reagents, small materials and so on. You and your institution must also display a sign, panel or poster at the laboratory entrance indicating receipt of the DiabetesCERO grant, visible throughout the grant period; the foundation supplies a sample.

Reporting runs on a six-month cycle: an interim report every six months, and a final report two years after the award covering activities, results, fulfilment of deliverables and a financial section justifying expenditure with supporting documentation.

Intellectual property stays with you and your institution. Patents must acknowledge DiabetesCERO’s financial support, and the foundation must be told about a patent application before it is filed with the patent office. Grantees also commit to translating findings toward clinical application, and may be asked to help with public dissemination activities. Any public communication about the project must state that it was carried out with the Fundación DiabetesCERO “Frontiers in T1D Cure. Advanced Grants for Leading Researchers” grant.

Grounds for early termination include failing to submit required reports, falsified documentation, failure to meet stated objectives on deadlines and results, and accepting another grant for the same purpose without immediately notifying the foundation in writing. Penalties can extend to rejection from the foundation’s next two calls of any type.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there an online portal? No. Applications go by email to [email protected], as a single message with all attachments.

Can I apply from outside the EU? The rules require the host research centre to be in the European Union. Applicants elsewhere should confirm with the foundation before applying.

Do I need to be the sole PI? The call is built around an individual project led by a principal investigator linked to a research institution. The CV requirement refers to the principal investigator(s), so check with the foundation if you plan a co-PI arrangement.

Can I resubmit an idea already funded elsewhere? You must declare existing or requested funding for the project and explain how DiabetesCERO’s contribution is complementary. The grant cannot fund work that is already completed.

Will I get feedback if I am not selected? No. The foundation states it will not provide disaggregated or individualised information about applications or committee deliberations, and will not maintain correspondence with unsuccessful applicants. The decision is final and unappealable.

When would money actually arrive? Results are announced in March 2027 and funded projects start in April 2027, so plan any bridging arrangements accordingly.

Official Links and Next Steps

The single authoritative page is the Frontiers in T1D Cure call page at diabetescero.org. It hosts the Rules of Participation, the application template, the first-stage proposal template, the reduced CV template and the full proposal template — all in English.

If the fit is right, the sequence over the remaining weeks is straightforward: read the Rules of Participation in full, confirm your host institution’s EU status and willingness to sign, request the acceptance letter immediately, draft the eight-page Letter of Intent around the innovation and unmet-need criteria that carry three-quarters of the stage 1 score, and assemble the package under the foundation’s naming convention well before 31 August 2026. Questions on eligibility should go to [email protected].