Horizon Europe WIDERA – Teaming for Excellence / EU

Grant name: Horizon Europe WIDERA - Teaming for Excellence
Project number: 101136570
Principal investigator: Prof. Maciej Wojtkowski
Project coordinator: Joanna Kartasiewicz
Source of funding: European Union
Funding amount: 15 000 000 EUR
Project status: In progress

Funding statement: Funded by the European Union, under project no. 101136570 under the Teaming for Excellence call and Foundation for Polish Science, under project no. FENG.02.01-IP.05-T005/23 under IRAP FENG call and NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre and French National Research Agency (ANR), under project no. ANR-10-LABX-0065 under the LIFESENSES call and project no. ANR-18-IAHU-0001 under FOReSIGHT call and Île-de-France Region, under project DIM C-BRAINS and Optic 2000.

Project Website

Project title: Translational Research on Innovations in Ophthalmology and Vision (ICTER CoE)

Project Leader: prof. Maciej Wojtkowski

Thanks to significant European and Polish funding, the existing International Centre for Eye Research (ICTER) in Warsaw will be transformed into a Centre of Excellence for research in ophthalmology. The Centre will be established based on the expertise of leading universities and ophthalmic teaching hospitals from the UK (Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London) and France (Institute de la Vision, University of Sorbonne). The Centre will be embedded in a specialised and multidisciplinary ecosystem, located in Mazovia Region. Our ambition is to enhance the excellence of the local ophthalmic community and increase the cross-fertilisation of optical imaging with other key enabling technologies.

The main long-term goal of this project is to improve the quality of life of patients with eye diseases by generating new knowledge and developing new state-of-the-art technologies in ophthalmology.

To introduce new standards in eye care through the following specific objectives:

To introduce scientific excellence – by developing the CoE to become a role model in translational research;
To improve organizational culture – by transferring good practices from partner institutions;
To enable technology transfer via Innovation Hub – by leveraging increased R&D capacity and the use of advanced technologies in vision care;
To introduce innovative translational platform for vision research – by strengthening R&I capacity of modern translational vision research as a stimulator of new standards in vision care;
To increase mutually beneficial cooperation, synergy, and outreach activities – by maintaining standards and synergies between EU programs.

Funding of €30 M comes from Poland’s IRAP FENG Program (€8M) and central funding schemes (€7M), matched by funding from EC (€15M).