Call: European partnership on transforming health and care systems

Logo

Programme

Horizon Europe - Cluster 1 - Destination 4: Ensuring access to innovative, sustainable and high-quality health care

Acronym

HORIZON-HLTH-CARE

Type of Fund

Direct Management

Description of programme
"Horizon Europe - Cluster 1 - Destination 4: Ensuring access to innovative, sustainable and high-quality health care"

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 areas ‘Good health and high-quality accessible health care’ and ‘A resilient EU prepared for emerging threats’, and in particular to the following expected impact, set out in the Strategic Plan for the health cluster: ‘Health care systems provide equal access to innovative, sustainable and high-quality health care thanks to the development and uptake of safe, cost-effective and people-centred solutions, with a focus on population health, health systems resilience, as well as improved evidence-based health policies’. In addition, research and innovation supported under this destination could also contribute to the following impact areas: ‘Climate change mitigation and adaptation’, ‘High quality digital services for all’ and ‘A Competitive and secure data economy’.

Health systems are affected by limitations in sustainability and resilience, challenges which have been reinforced by the COVID-19 crisis that has also revealed inequalities in access to high-quality health care services. Our health systems need to become more effective, efficient, accessible, fiscally and environmentally sustainable, and resilient in order to cope with public health emergencies, to adapt to environmental challenges like climate change and to contribute to social justice and cohesion. Therefore, the transformation and modernisation of our health systems will be one of the biggest challenges in the economic recovery-bound future, but it will also be a time of opportunity for generating evidence, taking advantage of digital and data-driven innovation and developing more flexible and equitable health systems.

Under this destination, research and innovation aims at supporting health care systems in their transformation to ensure fair access to sustainable health care services of high quality for all citizens. Funded activities should support the development of innovative, feasible, implementable, financially sound and scalable solutions in the various dimensions of health care systems (e.g. governance, financing, human and physical resources, health service provision, and patient empowerment). Ultimately, these activities should provide decision-makers with new evidence, methods, tools and technologies for uptake into their health care systems and, consequently, allow improving governance of the European health care systems, supporting health care professionals and providers and allocating resources according to citizens’ health needs and preferences, while ensuring fiscal and environmental sustainability to assure those needs can be met on the long-term. Funded activities should adopt a patient-centred approach that empowers patients, promotes a culture of dialogue and openness between citizens, patients, caregivers, health care providers and other relevant stakeholders, and unleashes the potential for social innovation.

In this work programme, destination 4 will focus on the following issues:

Modernising health care systems in the EU, especially through a European public-public partnership on transforming health and care systems;
Improving the quality of health care along the entire health care continuum and being people-centred;
Supporting evidence-based health care decisions both for health care providers and policy-makers, fostering improved foresight and enabling sound planning of health care resources;
Enhancing development and uptake of innovative health care services and solutions, including environmentally sustainable ones that contribute to the European Green Deal.

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 economics and economic models, on cost-effectiveness, fiscal sustainability and accessibility of health care, or on adaptation of public health systems to societal challenges (climate change, environmental degradation, migration, demographic change, emerging epidemics and One Health AMR) thereby contributing to building resilience; with cluster 3 “Civil Security for Society” such as on security of health care infrastructures, incl. digital health infrastructures, health systems preparedness and response to disasters and other emergencies, and quality and safety of medicine (counterfeit and substandard medicine, illicit drugs, One Health AMR); with cluster 4 “Digital, Industry and Space” such as on cybersecurity of (public) health systems, products and infrastructures of digitalised health and care, or on health impact assessment (e.g. related to consumer products, working place innovation).

Expected impacts:

Proposals for topics under this destination should set out a credible pathway to contributing to ensuring access to innovative, sustainable and high-quality health care, and more specifically to one or several of the following impacts:

Health and social care services and systems have improved governance mechanisms and are more effective, efficient, accessible, resilient, trusted and sustainable, both fiscally and environmentally. Health promotion and disease prevention will be at their heart, by shifting from hospital-centred to community-based, people-centred and integrated health care structures and successfully embedding technological innovations that meet public health needs, while patient safety and quality of services is increased.
Health care providers are trained and equipped with the skills and competences suited for the future needs of health care systems that are modernised, digitally transformed and equipped with innovative tools, technologies and digital solutions for health care. They save time and resources by integrating and applying innovative technologies, which better involve patients in their own care, by reorganising workflows and redistributing tasks and responsibilities throughout the health care system, and by monitoring and analysing corresponding health care activities.
Citizens are supported to play a key role in managing their own health care, informal carers (including unpaid carers) are fully supported (e.g. by preventing overburdening and economic stress) and specific needs of more vulnerable groups are recognised and addressed. They benefit from improved access to health care services, including financial risk protection, timely access to quality essential health care services, including safe, effective, and affordable essential medicines and vaccines.
Health policy and systems adopt a holistic approach (individuals, communities, organisations, society) for the evaluation of health outcomes and value of public health interventions, the organisation of health care, and decision-making.
The actions resulting from the calls under this destination will also create strong opportunities for synergies with the EU4Health programme and in particular to contribute to the goals under general objectives 1a “protecting people in the Union from serious cross-border threats to health and strengthening the responsiveness of health systems and coordination among the Member States to cope with those threats” and 3 “strengthening health systems by improving their resilience and resource efficiency, in particular through: i) supporting integrated and coordinated work between Member States; ii) promoting the implementation of best practices on data sharing; iii) reinforcing the healthcare workforce; iv) tackling the implications of demographic challenges; and v) advancing digital transformation”.

Link

Link to Programme

Call

European partnership on transforming health and care systems

Description of call
"European partnership on transforming health and care systems"

Expected Outcome

Researchers across European countries and regions are engaged in enhanced collaborative research on transforming health and care systems;
Health and care authorities, policymakers and other stakeholders use the research results to develop evidence-based strategies and policies on transforming health care systems and learn from good practices of European countries and regions;
Health and care providers and professionals implement innovative ways of delivering care and maintaining population health;
Health and care authorities, policymakers and other stakeholders plan and carry out efficient investments in health and care systems at national/regional level to use innovative solutions and care models;
An increased number of innovators and stronger local/regional ecosystems of stakeholders are in place and facilitate uptake of successful innovations for health and care;
Citizens and health and care professionals have increased digital and health literacy;
Countries cooperate better and use context-specific knowledge and evidence to make their health and care systems more resilient with respect to upcoming needs and crises.

Scope:

For many reasons (demographic changes, technological progress, fiscal constraints, public health emergencies etc.) the European health and care systems are expected to be subject to severe stress. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted existing structural weaknesses in health and care systems, and emphasised areas where not enough effort, planning and resources had been directed to. In addition, rapid technological and societal evolutions call for urgent responses to increasing demands and expectations from citizens. There is a need to accelerate the transition towards more efficient, sustainable, resilient, innovative and accessible health and care systems in Europe. To this end, the creation of a research and innovation (R&I) partnership with a focus on health and care systems’ transformation represents a unique strategic opportunity to bring together stakeholders, create synergies, coordinate R&I actions, facilitate the digitization of health and care services and support the transformation of health and care systems with innovative solutions driven by knowledge and evidence. The partnership should build on knowledge gained from initiatives taken under Horizon 2020 (TO-REACH, Active and Assisted Living programme (AAL), Joint Programming Initiative More Years, Better, Lives (JPI MYBL), European Innovation partnership (EIP-AHA), ICPerMed, etc.). In order to increase the likelihood of successful system transformation, the partnership will facilitate exchange of information and good practices among countries, provide robust guidance and tools, network institutional stakeholders and involve regional ecosystems. It will stimulate service, policy and organisational innovations, as well as the integration of biomedical and technological innovations for the benefit of the European citizens and the European industry. Development of new products is beyond the scope of this Partnership. By laying the ground for the transformation of the health and care systems, the partnership will contribute to the transition of Europe to a more sustainable development and address emerging threats raised by environmental changes and globalisation.

The partnership should bring together a broad range of actors with a common vision of future health and care systems. Through the objectives of Horizon Europe, the partnership should contribute to achieving the following European Commission priorities:

Promoting our European way of life
An economy that works for people
A Europe fit for the digital age
A European green deal

The partnership will contribute to priorities of the “Communication on effective, accessible and resilient health systems” (COM(2014) 215 final), the “Communication on enabling the digital transformation of health and care in the Digital Single Market; empowering citizens and building a healthier society” (COM(2018) 233 final) and support the objectives of the Commission proposal for the new EU4Health Programme (COM(2020) 405 final).

Thanks to its capacity to bring together different stakeholders (e.g. research funders, health authorities, health and care institutions, innovators, policy makers), to create a critical mass of resources and to implement a long-term Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), the partnership will address the following objectives:

Supporting multidisciplinary R&I to fill knowledge gaps, produce evidence and develop guidance and tools in priority areas for the transformation of health and care systems,
Supporting the interdisciplinary development of service, policy and organisational innovations for health and care systems,
Strengthening the R&I community in the field of health and care systems,
Improving the capability of health and care actors to take up innovative solutions,
Gathering stakeholders to develop the ecosystems needed for a swift uptake of innovations by health and care systems.

The European Partnership on transforming health and care systems should be implemented through a joint programme of activities ranging from research to coordination and networking activities, including training, demonstration, piloting and dissemination activities, to be structured along the following main building blocks:

Joint implementation of the SRIA;
Joint annual calls for R&I activities, applied R&I, pilots, twinning projects;
Joint annual calls for experimental development and innovation funding, co-creation, involvement of end-users, new concepts of care and innovative solutions for supporting health according to WHO definition; development of ecosystems, business models;
Capacity building activities;
Activities to increase health and digital literacy among citizens and health care practitioners;
Flanking measures.

The Partnership is open to all EU Member States, as well as to countries associated to Horizon Europe and will remain open to those countries wanting to join. It should include the following actors:

Ministries in charge of R&I policy, as well as national and regional R&I and technology funding agencies and foundations;
Ministries in charge of health and care policy, as well as national and regional health and care authorities, organisations and providers.

The Partnership may also encourage engagement with other relevant Ministries and will involve other key actors from civil society and end-users, research and innovation community, innovation owners, health and care systems owners/organisers and health and care agencies.

The Partnership’s governance structure should enable an upfront strategic steering, effective management and coordination, daily implementation of activities and ensure the use and uptake of the results. The governance should leave sufficient space for involving the key stakeholders, including but not limited to R&I community, patients and citizens, health and care professionals, formal and informal care organisations, and innovation owners.

Financial commitments and in-kind contributions are expected to be provided for the governance structure, the joint calls and other dedicated implementation actions and efforts for national coordination.

To encourage national coordination and avoid an excess of grant signatories it is recommended to limit their number to two per country. However, in duly justified cases this number could differ, including for countries with decentralised administration to allow for participation of regional authorities in charge of R&I policy and health and care policy.

To ensure coherence and complementarity of activities and leverage knowledge and investment possibilities, the Partnership is expected to establish relevant collaborations with other Horizon Europe partnerships (institutionalized and co-funded) and missions as set out in the working document on ‘Coherence and Synergies of candidate European partnerships under Horizon Europe’ as well as to explore collaborations with other relevant activities at EU and international level. On top of this, the proposal should consider synergies with EU programmes, including but not limited to EU4Health, DEP, ESF+, ERDF, InvestEU, RRF and TSI.

The Partnership should align with EU-wide initiatives on open access and FAIR data.

Although this Partnership will focus on the transformation of European health and care systems, cooperation with international organisations, and non-European institutions and experts may be considered. Applicants should describe in their proposal the methodology for their collaboration and the aims they want to achieve with this kind of collaboration.

Proposals should pool the necessary financial resources from the participating national (or regional) research programmes with a view to implementing joint calls for transnational proposals resulting in grants to third parties. Financial support provided by the participants to third parties is one of the primary activities of this action in order to be able to achieve its objectives. The EUR 60 000 threshold provided for in Article 204(a) of the Financial Regulation No 2018/1046 does not apply.

The expected duration of the partnership is seven years.

Horizon Europe contribution will be limited to a maximum of 30% of the total eligible costs of the action with a maximum of EUR 100 million of EU contribution

Link

Link to Call

Thematic Focus

Clustering, Development Cooperation, Economic Cooperation, Health, Social Affairs, Sports, Digitisation, ICT, Telecommunication, Capacity Building, Cooperation Networks, Institutional Cooperation, Community Integration, European Citizenship, Shared Services

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.

In recognition of the opening of the US National Institutes of Health’s programmes to European researchers, any legal entity established in the United States of America is eligible to receive Union funding to support its participation in projects funded under the Health cluster.

Call opens

06.10.2021

Call closes

21.04.2022

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: 70 pages

Type of Funding

Grants

Financial details

Expected EU contribution per project	The Commission estimates that an EU contribution of around EUR 100.00 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 100.00 million.
Typ of Action	Programme Co-fund Action (COFUND)
Funding rate	30%

Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants.
Financial support provided by the participants to third parties is one of the primary activities of the action in order to be able to achieve its objectives. The EUR 60 000 threshold provided for in Article 204(a) of the Financial Regulation No 2018/1046[[Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 July 2018 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union, amending Regulations (EU) No 1296/2013, (EU) No 1301/2013, (EU) No 1303/2013, (EU) No 1304/2013, (EU) No 1309/2013, (EU) No 1316/2013, (EU) No 223/2014, (EU) No 283/2014, and Decision No 541/2014/EU and repealing Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012; https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32018R1046 ]] does not apply

Submission

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