Call: Mobilising a network of National Contact Points (NCPs) for the Health Cluster

Logo

Programme

Horizon Europe - Cluster 1 - Destination 1: Staying healthy in a rapidly changing society

Acronym

HORIZON-HLTH-STAYHLTH

Type of Fund

Direct Management

Description of programme
"Horizon Europe - Cluster 1 - Destination 1: Staying healthy in a rapidly changing society"

Calls for proposals under this destination are directed towards the Key Strategic Orientation KSO-D ‘Creating a more resilient, inclusive and democratic European society’ of Horizon Europe’s Strategic Plan 2021-2024. Research and innovation supported under this destination should contribute to the impact area ‘Good health and high-quality accessible health care’ and in particular to the following expected impact, set out in the Strategic Plan for the health cluster: ‘citizens of all ages stay healthy and independent in a rapidly changing society thanks to healthier lifestyles and behaviours, healthier diets, healthier environments, improved evidence-based health policies, and more effective solutions for health promotion and disease prevention’. In addition, research and innovation supported under this destination could also contribute to the following impact areas: ‘High quality digital services for all’, ‘Sustainable food systems from farm to fork on land and sea’, and ‘Climate change mitigation and adaptation’.

People´s health care needs are different, depending on their age, stage of life and socio-economic background. Their physical and mental health and well-being can be influenced by their individual situation as well as the broader societal context they are living in. Furthermore, health education and behaviour are important factors. Currently, more than 790 000 deaths per year in Europe are due to risk factors such as smoking, drinking, physical inactivity, and obesity. Upbringing, income, education levels, social and gender aspects also have an impact on health risks and how disease can be prevented. Moreover, people´s health can be impacted by a rapidly changing society, making it challenging to keep pace and find its way through new technological tools and societal changes, which both are increasing demands on the individual´s resilience. In order to leave no one behind, to reduce health inequalities and to support healthy and active lives for all, it is crucial to provide suitable and tailor-made solutions, including for people with specific needs.

In this work programme, destination 1 will focus on major societal challenges that are part of the European Commission’s political priorities, notably diet and health (obesity), ageing and demographic change, mental health, digital empowerment in health literacy, and personalised prevention. Research and innovation supported under this destination will provide new evidences, methodologies and tools for understanding the transition from health to disease. This will allow designing better strategies and personalised tools for preventing diseases and promoting health, including through social innovation approaches. Specific measures will also be developed to educate and empower citizens of all ages and throughout their life, to play an active role in the self-management of their own health and self-care, to the benefit of an active and healthy ageing. In 2022, it will also call for proposals for improving the availability and use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to predict the risk for onset and progression of chronic diseases. Key to achieving the expected impacts is the availability and accessibility of health data from multiple sources, including real-world health data, which will require appropriate support by research and data infrastructures, AI-based solutions, and robust and transparent methodologies for analysis and reporting.

Dialogue and coordination between stakeholders and policy makers as well as integration across different settings will be needed to develop more effective cross-sectoral solutions for health promotion and disease prevention and deliver improved evidence-based health for all.

In view of increasing the impact of EU investments under Horizon Europe, the European Commission welcomes and supports cooperation between EU-funded projects to enable cross-fertilisation and other synergies. This could range from networking to joint activities such as the participation in joint workshops, the exchange of knowledge, the development and adoption of best practices, or joint communication activities. Opportunities for potential synergies exist between projects funded under the same topic but also between other projects funded under another topic, cluster or pillar of Horizon Europe (but also with ongoing projects funded under Horizon 2020). In particular, this could involve projects related to European health research infrastructures (under pillar I of Horizon Europe), the EIC strategic challenges on health and EIT-KIC Health (under pillar III of Horizon Europe), or in areas cutting across the health and other clusters (under pillar II of Horizon Europe). For instance, with cluster 2 “Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society” such as on health inequalities, on other inequalities affecting health, or on citizens’ behaviour and engagement; with cluster 4 “Digital, Industry and Space” such as on digital tools, telemedicine or smart homes; with cluster 5 “Climate, Energy and Mobility” such as on urban health or on mitigating the impact of road traffic accidents and related injuries; with cluster 6 “Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment” such as on the role of nutrition for health (incl. human microbiome, mal- and over-nutrition, safe food), personalised diets (incl. food habits in general and childhood obesity in particular) and the impact of food-related environmental stressors on human health (incl. marketing and consumer habits).[[Strategic Plan 2021-2024 of Horizon Europe, Annex I, Table 2.]]

Expected impacts:

Proposals for topics under this destination should set out a credible pathway to contributing to staying healthy in a rapidly changing society, and more specifically to one or several of the following impacts:

Citizens adopt healthier lifestyles and behaviours, make healthier choices and maintain longer a healthy, independent and active life with a reduced disease burden, including at old ages or in other vulnerable stages of life.
Citizens are able and empowered to manage better their own physical and mental health and well-being, monitor their health, and interact with their doctors and health care providers.
Citizens´ trust in knowledge-based health interventions and in guidance from health authorities is strengthened, including through improved health literacy (including at young ages), resulting in increased engagement in and adherence to effective strategies for health promotion, diseases prevention and treatment, including increased vaccination rates and patient safety.

Health policies and actions for health promotion and disease prevention are knowledge-based, people-centred and thus targeted and tailored to citizens' needs, and designed to reduce health inequalities.

Link

Link to Programme

Call

Mobilising a network of National Contact Points (NCPs) for the Health Cluster

Description of call
"Mobilising a network of National Contact Points (NCPs) for the Health Cluster"

Expected Outcome

This topic aims at supporting activities that are enabling or contributing to all of the expected impacts of destination 1 “Staying healthy in a rapidly changing society”, as well as the expected impacts of all other destinations of the health cluster. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim for delivering results that are directed, tailored towards and contributing to all of the following expected outcomes:

An improved and professionalised NCP service across Europe, thereby helping simplify access to Horizon Europe calls, lowering the entry barriers for newcomers, and raising the average quality of proposals submitted.
A more consistent level of NCP support services across Europe.
The network of National Focal Points (NFPs) supporting the implementation of the EU Health programmes and the Enterprise Europe Network (EENs) providing support for small and medium-sized enterprises will be closely collaborating with the network of National Contact Points (NCPs) for the Health Cluster based on identified complementarities and synergies.

Scope:

Proposals should aim to facilitate trans-national co-operation between National Contact Points (NCPs) with a view to identifying and sharing good practices and raising the general standard of support to programme applicants.

The network will organise NCP Information Days, NCP trainings, brokerage events for potential participants and provide appropriate tools and instruments to support NCPs and researchers. Activities will support researchers of the social sciences and humanities to connect into all Clusters of Horizon Europe. To achieve its expected outcomes and objectives, the NCP network could cooperate with but should not duplicate actions foreseen in other thematic and horizontal Horizon Europe NCP networks.

Proposals should include a work package to implement matchmaking activities to link up potential participants from widening countries with emerging consortia in the domain of the Health Cluster. Matchmaking should take place by means of online tools, brokerage events, info days and bilateral meetings between project initiators and candidate participants from widening countries. Other matchmaking instruments may be used as appropriate. Where relevant, synergies should be sought with the Enterprise Europe Network to organise matchmaking activities in accordance with Annex IV of the NCP Minimum Standards and Guiding Principles.

The proposed structure and activities of the HE Health NCP network, should be closely interlinked with and associated to (at national and regional level) with those of the National Focal Points (NFPs) supporting the EU Health programmes. It is important to facilitate cooperation, identify and use synergies between the work of these two NCP and NFP networks - but also with other NCPs/NFPs responsible for different EU programmes providing funding available for health-related actions. This cooperation would not only improve the quality of the relevant actions funded by Horizon Europe and EU4Health but also the overall EU-level public health impact of all health-related actions using any EU funding.

Special attention should be given to enhancing the competence of NCPs, including helping less experienced NCPs rapidly acquire the know-how built up in other countries.

The consortium should have a good representation of experienced and less experienced NCPs.

The proposal should cover the whole duration of Horizon Europe plus one year.

Link

Link to Call

Thematic Focus

Clustering, Development Cooperation, Economic Cooperation, Research & Innovation, Technology Transfer & Exchange, Health, Social Affairs, Sports

Funding area

EU Member States
Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs)
United States of America

Origin of Applicant

EU Member States
Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs)
United States of America

Eligible applicants

Education and Training Centres, Federal State / Region / City / Municipality / Local Authority, Research Institution, Lobby Group / Professional Association / Trade Union, International Organization, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, SMEs (between 10 and 249 employees), Microenterprises (fewer than 10 employees), NGO / NPO, Public Services, National Government, Other, Start Up Company, University, Enterprise (more than 250 employees or not defined), Association

Applicant details

eligible non-EU countries:

countries associated to Horizon Europe

At the date of the publication of the work programme, there are no countries associated to Horizon Europe. Considering the Union’s interest to retain, in principle, relations with the countries associated to Horizon 2020, most third countries associated to Horizon 2020 are expected to be associated to Horizon Europe with an intention to secure uninterrupted continuity between Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. In addition, other third countries can also become associated to Horizon Europe during the programme. For the purposes of the eligibility conditions, applicants established in Horizon 2020 Associated Countries or in other third countries negotiating association to Horizon Europe will be treated as entities established in an Associated Country, if the Horizon Europe association agreement with the third country concerned applies at the time of signature of the grant agreement.

low-and middle-income countries

Legal entities which are established in countries not listed above will be eligible for funding if provided for in the specific call conditions, or if their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority.

Specific cases:

Affiliated entities - Affiliated entities are eligible for funding if they are established in one of the countries listed above.
EU bodies - Legal entities created under EU law may also be eligible to receive funding, unless their basic act states otherwise.
International organisations - International European research organisations are eligible to receive funding. Unless their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority, other international organisations are not eligible to receive funding. International organisations with headquarters in a Member State or Associated Country are eligible to receive funding for ‘Training and mobility’actions and when provided for in the specific call conditions.

Project Partner

Yes

Project Partner Details

Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call conditions , legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes:

at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State;and
at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.

Applicants must be Horizon Europe national support structures (e.g. NCP) responsible for Health and officially nominated to the Commission, from a Member State or Associated Country.

Only in case and as long as Horizon Europe structures would not yet be officially nominated, national support structures responsible for Health (SC1) nominated for Horizon 2020 would be eligible.

Further info

Proposal page limits and layout:

The application form will have two parts:

Part A to be filled in directly online (administrative information, summarised budget, call-specific questions, etc.)
Part B to be downloaded from the Portal submission system, completed and re-uploaded as a PDF in the system

Page limit - part B: 30 pages

Type of Funding

Grants

Financial details

Expected EU contribution per project	The Commission estimates that an EU contribution of around EUR 3.00 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of a proposal requesting different amounts.
Indicative budget	The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 3.00 million.
Typ of Action	Coordination and Support Actions (CSA)
Funding rate	100%

Submission

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System. Paper submissions are NOTpossible.