Applications are now closed.
The WEEPI Foundation does not accept unsolicited applications. Applicants are encouraged to regularly check this website for information about the opening of new funding opportunities and how to apply.
The WEEPI Foundation supports clinical and implementation research projects aimed at improving prevention, testing, and care for HIV, viral hepatitis, and tuberculosis in the central and eastern part of the WHO European Region.
Funding is only available through specific calls for proposals, which are announced on the WEEPI Foundation’s website, via social media, and other dissemination channels. Unsolicited applications are not accepted.
Through these calls, WEEPI fosters partnerships between researchers, healthcare providers, and institutions to develop evidence-based, innovative solutions that address key health challenges in the region.
Learn more below about eligibility criteria, application requirements, and the selection process.
Applications must include key documents such as a budget, project timeline, expected deliverables, risk mitigation plans, and CVs of core team members.
Read more about our track record here.
Log in to access the application form and download the required templates:
Complete and upload the templates along with your application.
Read more about aim, scopes, criteria, requirement, language, deadline, budget, duration and more below:
To qualify, projects must address at least one of the following aspects:
Breaking barriers: Reducing barriers to testing, prevention and care for HIV, viral hepatitis, and tuberculosis, including stigmatization and focusing on key population groups.
Enhancing care quality: Improving quality of care of people living with HIV, viral hepatitis, and tuberculosis, including adoption of European guidance (EACS, WHO, ECDC) into national guidelines and standards and implementation of quality control instruments to improve standard of care.
Innovating services: Generating evidence on new approaches to improving testing, prevention and care services for HIV, viral hepatitis, and TB (including linkage to care), and disseminating the research results at relevant fora.
Building capacity: Developing capacity at national level through training and education of healthcare providers.
Fostering partnerships: Building partnership with other health institutions at national and/or international level.
Applicants are encouraged to seek support for the project from national health authorities in advance, if feasible.
To achieve its mission, the WEEPI Foundation has introduced two independent funding mechanisms that together form its new funding model:
Smaller, exploratory initiatives designed to test new research ideas or approaches. These projects typically run for one year and aim to generate pilot data, support early-career researchers, and explore innovative solutions.
Eligibility: Open to applicants affiliated with a registered non-profit organisation, university, hospital, or research institute within the WHO European Region.
Objective: Support the development of new concepts and provide a foundation for future, larger-scale work.
Duration: Up to 12 months.
Funding: Up to CHF 30,000.
Reporting: Project reports and publication in open-access journals.
Seed Grants are fully independent projects. They are not prerequisites for applying to a Framework Grant, though successful Seed projects may naturally evolve into larger initiatives over time.
The next call for Seed Grants is planned for the second half of 2026.
Ambitious, multi-year projects designed to build sustainable research capacity and deliver measurable, long-term impact on healthcare systems and practices.
Eligibility: Open to registered non-profit organisations, universities, and research institutions. For Framework Grants, applicants must demonstrate institutional and financial stability through a diversified funding base and at least three years of audited financial statements.
Objective: Strengthen institutional capacity and drive systemic change in testing, prevention, and care for HIV, viral hepatitis, and tuberculosis.
Duration: Up to four years.
Funding: Up to CHF 400,000 per project.
Deliverables: Annual, performance-based funding assessed against progress toward agreed milestones, with required project reports and open-access publication of results.
Framework Grants are stand-alone awards that do not require prior participation in a Seed Grant.
The first call for Framework Grants opens in October 2025.
_____
This replaces the previous Stage 1–Stage 2 funding model, where a short project was followed by a continuation grant. Under the new model, Seed and Framework Grants are fully independent and can be applied for separately.
Countries
WEEPI supports applications from institutions across the central and eastern WHO European Region, with priority given to low- and middle-income countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
WEEPI encourages collaborative projects and partnerships between institutions in Eastern Europe and researchers or organisations in Western Europe.
Institutions and individuals
Eligible applicants include:
Requirements
WEEPI provides structured support to all funded projects to strengthen research quality, management, and long-term sustainability.
Each project is assigned one to two project advisors and a designated Secretariat focal person who provide continuous guidance throughout the project cycle—from start-up and implementation to reporting and dissemination. Together, they form WEEPI’s core capacity-building package, ensuring every grantee receives tailored scientific, technical, and operational support.
Capacity building is central to WEEPI’s mission of leaving behind stronger teams, institutions, and partnerships across Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Additional or elective capacity-building support can be arranged on request and subject to approval. This may include training or mentorship in scientific methodology, ethics and compliance, data analysis, project implementation, grant management, or scientific writing and publication. These services draw on WEEPI’s network of experts and partner institutions to respond to specific project needs.
The aim of the grant solicitation and selection process is to establish clear, transparent and fair criteria for the grantee selection process. Only projects fulfilling the eligibility criteria and adhering to the requirements set out in the online application form will be considered.
Selection
Project proposals are assessed and selected on the basis of a transparent process to ensure that projects selected for funding contribute to the aim and strategy of the foundation. Only projects fulfilling the eligibility criteria and requirements set out in the online application form will be considered for quality assessment and selection.
WEEPI applies the same transparent and merit-based review process to both Seed and Framework Grants, with proportional requirements and review depth appropriate to each funding type.
Eligibility screening
All proposals first go through a pre-screening process by the foundation’s secretariat to assess whether they are eligible for funding, according to the general requirements of WEEPI as well as any specific requirements for the specific call for proposals. These requirements include adherence to the submission deadline, a focus on one or more of the relevant infections, a research focus (either clinical or implementation research), project aims that contribute to WEEPI’s aims and fall within the scope of the call, as well as eligible country, type of organisation or institution, applicant and endorsement of applicant by governing body, maximum project duration, and submission of applicant CVs, Gantt diagram, deliverables and milestones, risks and mitigations and budget.
WEEPI follows the WHO European Region classification, supporting institutions across the central and eastern part of the Region, with priority given to low- and middle-income countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. High-income EU member states remain eligible for collaboration in cases of ongoing projects or strategic relevance but are not prioritised for capacity-building support.
The pre-screening also includes a review of the budget, including maximum limit, adherence to limits for specific main budget lines, types of expenses that can be covered, correctness of calculations, and an assessment of cost levels for the country in question, and justification of expenses included.
Quality assessment
Eligible proposals are then assessed individually by a panel of external experts from renowned institutions who all have long experience in research, infectious diseases and knowledge of the eastern European region. See the list of expert reviewers at the bottom of the page.
Each proposal is independently reviewed by two external reviewers as well as one or two internal WEEPI reviewers. Reviewers are allocated to proposals based on their areas of expertise (e.g. disease focus), while potential biases are also considered (not originating from the same country as the applicants or having collaborated with the applicants and not having any vested interests in the proposal). Preferably, each proposal is reviewed by one reviewer with public health expertise and one with a clinical background.
Reviews are based on a standardized online form consisting of a number of questions to be scored against a 5-point scale and an option to provide a comment to justify the rating and suggest changes. The questions focus on project relevance to people living with HIV, viral hepatitis or tuberculosis, disease burden in the country, research methodology, plausibility of impact, ethical considerations, project management, track record and capacity of the project team, as well as budget justifications. For Framework Grants, sustainability and impact issues are particularly important and assessed.
Strategic recommendations
Following the review by external experts, the proposals with the highest score are presented to the foundation’s Advisory Board along with the results of the detailed review of each. The role of Advisory Board is to provide strategic advice and recommendations to the Executive Board, including on projects to be funded.
The Advisory Board consists of a number of experts from leading European clinical associations and learned societies, key public health institutions and non-governmental organisations involved in HIV, viral hepatitis and tuberculosis. In addition, a number of individual experts/clinicians from countries in eastern Europe are invited as observers.
Usually, proposals that reviewers have scored with at least 75% of the highest possible rating will be shared with and assessed by the Advisory Board, depending on the number of proposals received and the number of projects that can be funded for each funding round. For Framework Grants, all eligible proposals are assessed by the Advisory Board.
While the external reviewers assess each proposal individually, the Advisory Board looks at the entire pool of highest scoring proposals and considers strategic prioritization and distribution of projects. Therefore, all members of the Advisory Board read and assess all the proposals with the highest score.
Members of the board are asked to assess each of the selected projects on the basis of a set of strategic guiding principles:
For each funding round, a meeting is held with the Advisory Board to discuss and prioritize proposals recommended for funding. At these meetings, the secretariat presents a summary of the reviewers’ scores and remarks. Each proposal is then discussed, prioritized among other proposals, and assessed as either “recommended”, “needing revision” or “not recommended”. For proposals that are recommended for funding, the Advisory Board provides advice on any methodological, technical or administrative shortcomings and may recommend adjustments and revisions to be made before funding can be granted.
Observers and board members with conflicts of interests are not allowed to vote on which proposals should receive funding.
Selection by Executive Board
The recommendations of the Advisory Board are shared with the foundation’s Executive Board who meet to discuss and select projects for funding. Executive Board members may also provide recommendations and require adjustments to be made before projects can be accepted for funding. Recommendations are then shared in feedback letters to applicants who submit rebuttals that are considered, before the Executive Board makes its final decision. The Foundation Council provides the final, formal approval, after which successful applicants sign grant agreements.
Applications will be evaluated and assessed based on the following criteria:
All WEEPI-funded projects must entail clinical or implementation research and aim to produce and disseminate quantifiable results, outputs, and lessons learnt.
WEEPI gratefully acknowledges the group of external expert reviewers who supported the detailed assessment of the eligible funding proposals in one or more of the application/review rounds so far:
Aisuluu Bolotbaeva, Public Health and Human Rights Consultant, European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG)
Alvaro Borges, MD, PhD, Chief medical officer, Dept of Infectious Disease Immunology, Statens Serum Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark
Ana Ciobanu, MD, Freelance TB and HIV/AIDS specialist, formerly consultant for WHO Regional Office for Europe, Moldova
Anastasia Pharris, PhD, Group Leader, STI, blood-borne viruses and TB, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)
Anders Sönnerborg, MD, PhD, Professor, Karolinska Institute and Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
Andrew Amato Gauci, MD, MSc, Public Health Consultant (formerly ECDC), Malta
Antons Mozalevskis, MD, Technical Officer, WHO Headquarters
Arax Hovhannesyan, MD, Freelance epidemiologist, Armenia
Aurelien Emmanuel Martinez, MD, Senior physician, Solothurner Spitäler AG-soH, Spital Dornach, Switzerland
Daria Podlekareva, MD, PhD, Post Doc, Consultant, Dept of Respiratory Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Copenhagen University Hospital, and International Reference Laboratory of Mycobacteriology at Statens Serum Institut, Denmark
Elena Vovc, MD, Technical Officer, WHO Headquarters
George Rutherford, Professor, Epidemiology and biostatistics, Director, Prevention and Public Health Group, School of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, USA
Giorgi Kuchukhidze, MD, Technical Officer, WHO Regional Office for Europe
Ivana Bozicevic, MD, DrPH, Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for HIV Strategic Information, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Jan Heyckendorff, MD, Professor, University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and European Respiratory Society (ERS)
Jay Achar, MD, Karolinska Instituttet, Sweden
Jürgen Rockstroh, MD, Professor, HIV Outpatient Clinic, University Hospital Bonn, Germany
Justyna Kowalska, MD, Professor, Medical University of Warsaw, Poland
Lara Tavoschi, MSc, MPH, PhD, University of Pisa, Italy
Maia Butsashvili, MD, MS, PhD, Professor, Georgian-Armenian University, Director of research NGO “Health Research Union”, Georgia
Marcelo Naveira, MD, Technical Officer, WHO Regional Office for Europe
Maria Buti, MD, European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL)
Nicole Seguy, MD, formerly HIV/Viral Hepatitis Unit lead, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
Nikoloz Chkhartishvili, MD, MSc, Deputy Executive Director for Research, Infectious Diseases, AIDS and Clinical Immunology Research Center (IDACIRC), Tbilisi, Georgia
Ole Kirk, MD, Professor, Dept of Infectious Diseases, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark
Raminta Stuikyte, Senior Advisor to UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Office of Michel Kazatchkine
Stela Bivol, MD, Unit Lead (Joint Infectious Diseases), WHO Regional Office for Europe
Viktor Mravcik, MD, PhD, Professor, Research Director, Society Podane ruce, Czechia
Virginie Supervie, PhD, formerly researcher, INSERM, Paris, France