DOROTHY COFUND Programme

**Introduction** Further to the ministerial announcement on 6 July 2021, the Irish Research Council, in collaboration with the Health Research Board (HRB) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and co-funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme through Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Actions, launched the DOROTHY COFUND programme. The programme aims to break down barriers between different academic disciplines by driving collaboration between researchers through funding research which will shed light on public health crises from wide-ranging perspectives. Fellowships provide an opportunity for an international experience and reintegration to Ireland; offer excellent training, career development and networking opportunities; and give fellows an opportunity to provide innovative solutions to public health crises. This is a closed call, with 16 researchers already awarded fellowships. No further awards are planned under this programme. **Scope and Focus** Public health crises are too complex to be tackled in silos. Responding to the need to equip European societies with experts who are specially trained to address these challenges in a cooperative fashion, we have designed DOROTHY COFUND to recruit, train and launch the careers of excellent fellows through 36-month fellowships. Two recruitment calls were run. Fellowships have an international outgoing phase of 18 months, followed by a return phase to Ireland of 18 months. Fellows are encouraged to include a non-academic secondment. The programme aims to assist fellows in accelerating their careers through excellent training and networking opportunities in the Irish and EU innovation ecosystem.