Are you a healthcare provider, an institution for health research, technological small and medium-sized enterprise for the health industry, a medical inventor, healthcare tech enthusiast, med-tech startup, or industry giant? Interested in research and innovation funding actions of the European Union to expedite the development of high-quality cutting edge health technologies and health care?
If so, then this is the right place to be, as in the following text we will give you facts on the upcoming preliminary funding opportunities for your innovative health projects in the framework of the Horizon Europe programme.
By addressing effective healthcare services as well as the promotion of health and disease prevention, the €95,5 billion Horizon programme has set its headline targets for health-related challenges:
- Staying healthy in a rapidly changing society
- Living & Working in a health-promoting environment
- Tackling diseases & reducing disease burden
- Ensuring access to innovative, sustainable, and high-quality health care
- Unlocking the full potential of new tools, technologies, and digital solutions for a healthy society
- Maintaining an innovative, sustainable & globally competitive health industry
The targets, that go by the name »Destinations«, will be achieved through financed projects as a response to Calls for Proposals.
Destination 1, 2021
Destination 1 “Staying healthy in a rapidly changing society” will tentatively offer four Calls for Proposals in 2021.
This Destination is all about providing new evidence, methodologies and tools to achieve and maintain healthier behaviours, lifestyles and well-being, through education and citizen empowerment, dialogue and coordination between stakeholders and policymakers. Key focal point is on transforming the healthcare system from reacting to illness to proactively promoting health and preventing disease, backed up by accessible and effective digital solutions.
In 2021, the following Calls “Staying Healthy” will contribute to Destination 1:
HORIZON-HLTH-STAYHLTH-2021-01-01: PREVENTION OF OBESITY THROUGH THE LIFE COURSE
The scope of the Call rests on the fact that the prevalence of obesity has tripled in many European countries over the last decades.
Increased efforts in research and innovation are critical for developing and testing the impact of tools, initiatives, interventions, strategies, programmes, policies, and their implementation to prevent overweight/obesity. Cultural diversity, urban/rural dichotomy, socio-economic status, age groups, sex, and gender differences should also be investigated.
Funding rate: 100%;
Type of action: Research and Innovation action (RIA); [KVO1] single-stage application procedure (submission of full project at the given deadline);
Page limit for a full proposal is 70 pages (unless stated otherwise in the call conditions);
Partnership: at least 3 legal entities, independent of each other, established in a different EU member state / associated country; moreover, projects are strongly encouraged to engage citizens, authorities (municipalities and health authorities) and institutions (schools, canteens, hospitals, work places, shopping malls, sport centres), local producers etc in the development of the actions to ensure acceptability and deployment;
Expected budget: €3-€5 million in average;
Project maturity: actions to establish new knowledge, explore feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution may include basic and applied research, tech development and integration, testing and validation on a small-scale prototype in a laboratory or simulated environment (limited demonstration or pilot activities aiming to show technical feasibility in a near to operational environment).
Beneficial: Key to project approach are strong collaborations across sectors and with other European projects dealing with issues, such as agriculture, food, environment.
Destination 1 “Staying Healthy in a rapidly changing society” offers another interesting Call for 2021:
HORIZON-HLTH-STAYHLTH-2021-01-02: TOWARDS A MOLECULAR AND NEUROLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING OF MENTAL HEALTH AND MENTAL ILLNESS FOR THE BENEFIT OF CITIZENS AND PATIENTS
The scope [KVO2] of the Call emphasises an enormous stigma around mental illnesses, that also represent a huge and growing burden for Europe. As diagnoses largely depend on symptom-based criteria they often
remain undetected. Thus, a deeper molecular and neurological understanding of the interplay between genetic, epigenetic and environmental risk factors is critical for the development of objective biomarkers and evidence-based interventions that will significantly improve mental health outcomes.
Funding rate: 100%;
Type of action: Research and Innovation action (RIA); single-stage application procedure (submission of full project at the given deadline);
Page limit for a full proposal is 70 pages (unless stated otherwise in the call conditions);
Partnership: at least 3 legal entities, independent of each other, established in a different EU member state / associated country; moreover, projects are strongly encouraged to engage end-users;
Expected budget: €3-€5 million in average;
Project maturity: actions to establish new knowledge, explore feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution may include basic and applied research, tech development and integration, testing and validation on a small-scale prototype in a laboratory or simulated environment (limited demonstration or pilot activities aiming to show technical feasibility in a near to operational environment).
Important: Proposals may cover different stages of the innovation cycle, i.e. from basic and translational research to the validation of findings in real-world setting. The proposed research is expected to be multidisciplinary including both medical sciences and social sciences and humanities.
Tentatively the fourth Call under the Destination 1 to be published in 2021:
HORIZON-HLTH-STAYHLTH-2021-01-04: A ROADMAP FOR PERSONALISED PREVENTION
The scope of the Call begins with an acknowledgment, that the progress in medicine over the past decades has been impressive. However, more could be achieved if individuals at higher risk of developing a particular condition could be identified early on, before symptoms occur – as an indicator, two thirds of chronic diseases are thought to be preventable. Personalized prevention therefore holds many promises and would allow for a paradigm shift in the provision and management of healthcare if efforts would be coordinated and concentrated at the European and global levels.
Funding rate: 100%;
Type of action: Coordination and Support Action (CSA); single-stage application procedure (submission of full project at the given deadline);
Page limit for a full proposal is 50 pages (unless stated otherwise in the call conditions);
Partnership: At least one legal entity established in an EU Member State of Horizon 2020 associated country.
Expected budget:
Project maturity: Actions consisting primarily of accompanying measures, such as standardisation, dissemination, awareness raising and communication, networking, coordination or support services, policy dialogues and mutual learning exercises and studies, including design studies for new infrastructure and may also include complementary activities of strategic planning, networking and coordination between programmes in different countries.
Important: the CSA should engage with related initiatives (e.g. IC Permed) and provide input for the candidate EU partnership on personalized medicine.