Off-Road: doing research off the beaten track

At the initiative of ZonMw, the Off-Road programme started in 2015. No lengthy project proposals, CV or bibliography, but instead a short and concise sketch of the revolutionary idea and motivated reasons about why the research should be done. Within this programme, connection needs to be sought with other ZonMw programmes for which groundbreaking research could be of interest.

With this grant, we challenge young (bio)medical and healthcare researchers to realise new insights into and unexpected breakthroughs for medical and/or healthcare research. We expect several of these experimental studies to result in groundbreaking discoveries and accept that this will not be the case for some Off-Road projects ('High Risk- High Gain' projects).

The proposals have a high-risk profile and do not follow beaten research tracks. Project proposals must describe an unconventional research direction in the start-up phase. Out-of-the-box ideas weigh most in the assessment, more than the researcher's CV.

The OPD programme is making extra budget available for proposals that focus on the subject of dementia. This concerns additional budget. Therefore, if several proposals fall within the margins for awarding then, in principle, two proposals can be awarded funding from the OPD budget and the rest from the Off-Road budget.

• The programme is open to young researchers (2 to 6 years after PhD graduation).
• The project has a duration of at least 12 and at most 18 months.
• The maximum grant budget that can be applied for is €100,000.