The deadline for submission is 11 June 2020, while the call will focus on delivering results quickly. Europe, and the world at large, urgently need innovative solutions to contain and mitigate the outbreak, and to better care for patients, survivors, vulnerable groups, frontline health care staff and their communities. This is why the Commission aims to enable research work to start as quickly as possible through shorter timelines for the preparation of expressions of interest and for their evaluation.
This new special call under Horizon 2020 complements earlier actions to support 18 projects with €48.2 million to develop diagnostics, treatments, vaccines and preparedness for epidemics, as well as the €117 million invested in 8 projects on diagnostics and treatments through the Innovative Medicines Initiative, and measures to support innovative ideas through the European Innovation Council. It implements Action 3 of the ERAvsCorona Action Plan, a working document resulting from dialogues between the Commission services and national institutions.
The new call will cover five areas with the following indicative budgets:
- Repurposing of manufacturing for vital medical supplies and equipment (€23 million)
- Medical technologies, Digital tools and Artificial Intelligence analytics to improve surveillance and care at high Technology Readiness Levels (€56 million)
- Behavioural, social and economic impacts of the outbreak responses (€20 million)
- Pan-European COVID-19 cohorts (€20 million)
- Collaboration of existing EU and international cohorts of relevance to COVID-19 (€3 million).
More information is available here.