About us

Founded in 2018, the Global Cardiovascular Research Funders Forum (GCRFF) is a global partnership of twelve major cardiovascular research funders across nine countries.​

Our mission

The GCRFF’s mission is to improve global cardiovascular health by speeding up, supporting and promoting transformational international research efforts in heart, stroke and circulatory diseases.  

Key avenues for advancing this mission include developing an efficient mechanism to enable and facilitate multinational clinical trials, encouraging widespread and including funding data sharing practices, identifying and funding collaborative strategic cardiovascular research initiatives, mobilising networks to increase support for cardiovascular research, and sharing knowledge and best practice. 

Participating organisations

Structure & governance

Each GCRFF partner organisation is represented in the executive board by their respective chief executive or chief medical officers. They are supported by relevant staff from each funder where required. 

The executive board is the decision-making body for the GCRFF and determines the overall direction of shared initiatives.  A secretariat function within the British Heart Foundation provides administrative and logistic support. 

Within each workstream, a leading partner coordinates work on specific initiatives by steering and working groups formed of representatives from participating funders. 

Board of directors

Dr. David Tancredi, President of the Leducq Foundation, is the current chair of the GCRFF executive board. 

Rebecca Abma-Schouten, Scientific Director of the Dutch Heart Foundation, is the current vice-chair of the GCRFF executive board.  

  • American Heart Association

    National EVP, Science Strategies & Operations
    Dr. Nicole Aiello Sapio

    National SVP, Research & Grants Administration
    Dr. Gordon Tomaselli

  • British Heart Foundation

    Chief Executive Officer 
    Dr. Charmaine Griffiths

    Chief Science & Medical Officer
    Prof. Bryan Williams

  • Hjerteforeningen

    Chief Executive Officer
    Morten Ørsted-Rasmussen

    Chief Science Officer
    Prof. Gunnar Gislason

  • Dutch Heart Foundation

    Chief Executive Officer 
    Hans Snijder

    Scientific Director
    Rebecca Abma-Schouten

  • DZHK

    Managing Director
    Dr. Katharina Eulenberg

    Medical Director, University Heart & Vascular Centre, UKE
    Prof. Stefan Blankenberg

  • Heart & Stroke Canada

    Executive Vice President, Mission, Research, & Advocacy
    Diego Marchese

    Vice President, Research & Science
    Dr. Ryan Perry

  • Institute of Circulatory & Respiratory Health

    Scientific Director
    Dr. Ariane Marelli

    Associate Director
    Dr. Marie-Claude Gingras

  • Leducq foundation

    Director
    Dr. David Tancredi

    Chief Scientific Officer
    Dr. David Milan

  • National Heart Foundation of Australia

    Chief Executive Officer 
    David Lloyd

    Chief Medical Advisor
    Prof. Garry Jennings

  • National Heart Foundation of New Zealand

    Chief Executive Officer
    Clive Nelson

    Medical Director
    Dr. Gerry Devlin

  • National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

    Acting Director
    Dr. David Goff

    Acting Director, Division of Cardiovascular Science
    Dr. Gina Wei

  • Swiss Heart Foundation

    Director
    Dr. Robert Keller

    Chief Medical Adviser
    Prof. Stephan Windecker