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Call key data
Improving social and societal preparedness for disaster response and health emergencies
Funding Program
Horizon Europe - Cluster 3 - Destination 5: Disaster-Resilient Society for Europe
Call number
HORIZON-CL3-2023-DRS-01-01
deadlines
Opening
29.06.2023
Deadline
23.11.2023 17:00
Funding rate
100%
Call budget
€ 8,000,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
€ 4,000,000.00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
Projects should improve social and societal preparedness for disaster response and health emergencies with focus on vulnerable groups.
Call objectives
The COVID-19 pandemic illustrated the specific challenges of health emergencies and the necessity to be prepared not only on a material and physical level but also from a social and societal perspective. Challenges during the pandemic included difficulties of working with protective gear such as insecurities and usage mistakes; additional disadvantages for vulnerable groups among others due to communication issues; and lack of local cooperation and prevention regarding equipment, stocks, and coordination. These challenges were largely due to deficiencies in the inclusion of social sciences in disaster research. The COVID-19 pandemic poses an opportunity to analyse successes and difficulties during a global health crisis and thereby preparing for future health crises.
Currently, different groups are not reached equally by public communication efforts. Risk communication especially fails to contact vulnerable groups. Social inequalities are present in different forms and on different levels. For communication strategies and interventions, it should be considered how they are affected by different groups, localities, and cultural factors. In different crises, different vulnerability factors can be more pronounced and different groups can be more vulnerable. On the other hand, resilience can protect against negative effects of crises. Resilience can be supported on an individual, organisational, or systemic level. All should be considered in preparation for crisis as well as in acute situations.
Information technology and digital data processing are becoming increasingly important in public health issues. Processing large datasets and automated analyses can open new possibilities in understanding health and illness on a population level and for deriving prevention strategies. However, the implementation of information technology poses several challenges and research on how to effectively use the results in political decision-making. Data security is another challenge when large amounts of personalized (health) data are processed automatically. Concerns about data security and general scepticism about digital information processing in the population need to be taken seriously and addressed, and the solutions need to comply with EU law, including on data protection and cybersecurity.
Health encompasses several aspects and levels. Human health incorporates both physical and psychological health which are interconnected and mutually dependent. At the same time, humans are embedded in their environment so human and environmental health cannot be approached in isolation from each other. According to the One Health approach, health of humans, animals, and environment are intertwined. This is illustrated by the current health crisis of COVID-19 which is attributed to SARS-CoV-2 jumping over from wild animals to humans. Another illustration of the interconnectedness are health impacts of climate change. These interdependencies make an interdisciplinary approach to health necessary that incorporates all aspects of health and their interconnectedness.
This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH as well as gender experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH and gender expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities. The involvement of citizens, including citizen volunteers in demonstrations of tools and technologies, civil society and other societal stakeholders in co-design and co-creation should be promoted. In order to achieve the expected outcomes, international cooperation is encouraged.
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Expected results
Projects’ results are expected to contribute to some or all of the following outcomes:
- Identification of different factors in inequality and ways to communicate with vulnerable groups, of individual, organisational, and systemic resilience factors and pathways to support these, and of ways to address vulnerabilities in acute crisis as well as during prevention, in order to elaborate an interconnectedness of resilience and vulnerability;
- Improvement of populations health literacy and basic understanding of how medicine and vaccines work and how they are developed and produced;
- Improved crisis communication through increased awareness and risk perception regarding bio security, identification of challenges for and limits of communication strategies and interventions regarding different vulnerable groups and approaches to address these, elaborating of ways for resolving barriers for crisis communication: interlinguality, interculturality, intersemiotics;
- Putting the citizen at the centre of the crisis management process (involving where relevant citizen volunteers in demonstrations related to research developments), increasing their capacity to access, read and interpret scientifically sourced information, analysing gender behaviours regarding unpopular measures (e.g., quarantine) and vaccination attitudes and identification and relieving of barriers for vaccination readiness: Trust, risk appraisal, barriers for registration for vaccination, information, collective responsibility;
- Incorporation of information technology and bias-free data into crisis management through improved information processing in transformative governance, illustrating possibilities, challenges, and limits of digitalisation and enabling usage of data for political decision making;
- Incorporation of machine learning and artificial intelligence in governance and political decision making based on interdisciplinary discussions on definitions on problems in compliance with EU law; areas of application; and definition of responsibilities and competences in data governance;
- Validation of novel, smartphone sized or wearable technologies with laboratory-level diagnostics capability (e.g., wearables with integrated digital dosimeters, handheld PCR test devices);
- Strengthening of the One Health approach including not only human physical health but also mental health as well as environmental and animal health, and understanding of the biological risks posed by environmental changes such as climate change and preparedness for impacts on human health;
- Projects should comply with privacy safeguards to ensure that disaster response systems protect EU fundamental rights such as privacy and protection of personal data.
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Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
Moldova (Moldova), Albania (Shqipëria), Armenia (Հայաստան), Azerbaijan (Azərbaycan), Belarus (Беларусь), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna i Hercegovina / Босна и Херцеговина), Faeroes (Føroyar / Færøerne), Georgia (საქართველო), Iceland (Ísland), Israel (ישראל / إِسْرَائِيل), Kosovo (Kosova/Kosovë / Косово), Montenegro (Црна Гора), Morocco (المغرب), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Norway (Norge), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Tunisia (تونس /Tūnis), Türkiye, Ukraine (Україна), United Kingdom
eligible entities
Education and training institution, International organization, Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Other, Private institution, incl. private company (private for profit), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs), Research Institution incl. University, Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)
Mandatory partnership
Yes
Project Partnership
To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
- the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions
- the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States
- third countries associated to Horizon Europe - see list of particpating countries
Only legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes, as beneficiaries, three legal entities independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:
- 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.
Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.
A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
Specific cases:
- Affiliated entities — Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.
- Associated partners — Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any conditions regarding associated partners set out in the specific call conditions.
- Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons.
- EU bodies — Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.
- Joint Research Centre (‘JRC’)— Where provided for in the specific call conditions, applicants may include in their proposals the possible contribution of the JRC but the JRC will not participate in the preparation and submission of the proposal. Applicants will indicate the contribution that the JRC could bring to the project based on the scope of the topic text. After the evaluation process, the JRC and the consortium selected for funding may come to an agreement on the specific terms of the participation of the JRC. If an agreement is found, the JRC may accede to the grant agreement as beneficiary requesting zero funding or participate as an associated partner, and would accede to the consortium as a member.
- Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members (e.g. European research infrastructure consortia (ERICs)) may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’. However, if the action is in practice implemented by the individual members, those members should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible.
other eligibility criteria
This topic requires the active involvement, as beneficiaries, of at least 3 organisations from at least 3 different EU Member States or Associated Countries as follows: (i) at least one organisation representing citizens or local communities; (ii) at least one organisation representing practitioners (first and/or second responders); and (iii) at least one organisation representing local or regional authorities. For participants with practitioner status, applicants must fill in the table “Information about security practitioners” in the application form with all the requested information, following the template provided in the submission IT tool.
If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).
Additional information
Topics
Relevance for EU Macro-Region
EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region
UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)
Additional Information
All proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funders & Tenders Portal electronic submission system (accessible via the topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are NOT possible.
Proposals must be complete and contain all parts and mandatory annexes and supporting documents, e.g. plan for the exploitation and dissemination of the results including communication activities, etc.
The application form will have two parts:
- Part A (to be filled in directly online) contains administrative information about the applicant organisations (future coordinator and beneficiaries and affiliated entities), the summarised budget for the proposal and call-specific questions;
- Part B (to be downloaded from the Portal submission system, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded as a PDF in the system) contains the technical description of the project.
Annexes and supporting documents will be directly available in the submission system and must be uploaded as PDF files (or other formats allowed by the system).
The limit for a full application (Part B) is 45 pages.
Call documents
HE-Work Programme 2023-2024, Cluster 3HE-Work Programme 2023-2024, Cluster 3(1701kB)
Contact
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