NAM TPI Award for Cardiovascular Research

This is an annual prize of €3,000 that is dedicated to groundbreaking, animal-free research in the field of cardiovascular science aimed to reduce/replace research with laboratory animals. PhD students and early-career researchers (up to 5 years post-PhD) in The Netherlands can apply if their work includes development of innovative human-relevant methodologies, instead of animal experiments, for mechanistic insight, therapeutic target identification, and pharmacological testing.

Dutch CardioVascular Alliance (DCVA) 

In past years the cardiovascular community in The Netherlands has significantly contributed to optimization of experimental models for research with of without use of animals. As part of the Dutch CardioVascular Alliance (DCVA)  leadership program, a target image (streefbeeld) was written on the opportunities and challenges in the transition to animal-free research (TPI) in cardiovascular research. 

The Netherlands Heart Institute (NLHI) and the DCVA are committed to raising awareness among cardiovascular researchers about the current state-of-art in animal models and animal-free innovations. This award will be given to a young researcher who is conducting or has conducted groundbreaking cardiovascular research in The Netherlands with animal-free, human-relevant research, that is aimed at reducing/replacing animal research using NAMs based on human cells or data. 

Applications should include one or more publications (accepted or submitted), in which the NAM is described/applied, together with a motivation letter of the candidate. Other conditions:

1. The candidate should be (co-) first author on the publication(s). 
2. The candidate is doing a PhD or defended his/her PhD max. 5 years ago (on/after March 19, 2021); extension is possible under certain conditions. Please see the NLHI website.
3. The research must be animal-free, so research with animal species that do not fall under the Animal Experiments Act, such as zebrafish embryos, clawed frogs, fruit flies, etc., is excluded. Research with human volunteers or based on big data from patients does fall under the definition of NAMs and is therefore permitted.
4. Publications between January 1st 2023 and present (including submitted manuscripts) are taken into consideration.
5. The candidate should be present at the award session on June 19th 2026.

More information:
More information can be found on the NLHI website. From April 1st, candidates can send their application to congres@heart-institute.nl. All applications will be judged on innovation of methodology to replace/reduce research with laboratory animals, rigor (reproducibility of methodology), and (potential) impact for the cardiovascular field by 3 independent cardiovascular researchers. The winner will be honored this June during the DCVA-NLHI translational meeting in Utrecht, receiving funds to support future conferences or work visits.

Timeline 2026: 

• Announcement call: April 1st 
• Deadline submission: May 1st 
• Final outcome communicated to selected applicants: June 1st 
• Presentation of the award and a pitch on the research: June 19th during the annual DCVA-NLHI Translational Cardiovascular Research meeting in Utrecht.

2026 | Dr Frits Deiman, UMCG, Groningen.