Funding programme

Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation.

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Call overview

This call aims to support implementation science around interventions that will generate evidence about when, for whom, and under what circumstances, patient-centred approaches can improve integrated care for patients with MLTC NCD.

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Expected Outcome

This topic aims at supporting activities that are enabling or contributing to one or several expected impacts of destination 3 “Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden”. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim for delivering results that are directed, tailored towards and contributing to some of the following expected outcomes:

• Health care practitioners and providers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and/or those in high-income countries (HICs) serving disadvantaged populations have access to and use specific guidelines to implement health interventions that improve the availability of effective, equitable, efficient, integrated, patient-centred, safe, and timely care and the overall quality of life for people living with multiple long-term conditions including non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
• Public health managers and authorities, including from other relevant sector (e. g., social, culture) have access to improved insights and evidence on how to decrease the fragmentation of care for patients living with multiple chronic conditions, and ensure continuity of care across all stages of disease progression. They use this knowledge to design policies to reduce health inequities.
• Adopting an implementation science approach to studying interventions for management of multiple long-term conditions in the context of NCDs, researchers, clinicians and authorities have an improved understanding how the proposed interventions could be adopted in LMICs and/or disadvantaged populations of HICs setting, taking into account specific social, political, economic and cultural contexts.
• Communities and local stakeholders and authorities are fully engaged in implementing and taking up interventions for management of multiple long-term conditions in the context of NCDs and thus contribute to deliver better health.

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Scope

The European Commission is a member of the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD)^[1], an alliance of international funding agencies representing over 80% of the world’s public health research funding and the first collaboration of its kind to specifically address NCDs. The GACD supports implementation science to improve health outcomes. This topic is launched in concertation with the other GACD members and aligned with the 9^th GACD call.

The topic is focused on implementation research for management of multiple long-term conditions in the context of NCDs (MLTC NCD) in LMICs and/or disadvantaged populations in HICs. Proposals should focus on implementation science around interventions that will generate evidence about when, for whom, and under what circumstances, patient-centred approaches can improve integrated care for patients with MLTC NCD.

MLTC NCD refers to the co-occurrence of multiple chronic conditions, at least one of which is an NCD. NCDs include for example cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, cancers, musculoskeletal disorders, diabetes, hypertension, haematological disorders, sleep disorders, and mental health disorders. The high prevalence of MLTC NCD is projected to rise with the ageing population and the increasing burden of NCDs. MLTC NCD has a profound impact on patients, and is associated with premature death, physical disability, substance abuse, poor quality of life, mental health issues, and financial difficulties from high costs of care. It is also associated with difficulties in adherence to and high rates of adverse effects from treatment with multiple medications. In addition, due to poor health and the complexity of managing their conditions, patients with MLTC NCD are high utilisers of health care systems, which is especially challenging in low-resourced contexts.

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Activities

Proposals should address all of the following activities^[4]:

• Provide a research plan using validated implementation research frameworks or hybrid design research;
• Have an appropriate strategy for measuring implementation research outcomes and real-world effectiveness outcomes and indicators;
• Specifically address health equity and the principles of Universal Health Coverage^[5];
• Engage an appropriately expert and skilled research team which can ensure a suitable multidisciplinary approach and that demonstrates equitable partnership and shared leadership between HIC-LMIC, and/or non-Indigenous–Indigenous members of the project team and external stakeholders through a clear governance strategy;
• Provide a stakeholder engagement strategy with evidence of support/engagement from key stakeholders for delivering patient-centred care and a pathway to sustain the proposed intervention after the funding ends;
• Provide opportunities for implementation research capacity building for early career researchers and team members from lower resourced environments, such as LMICs or disadvantaged communities.
• Ensure meaningful involvement of early career team members, including at least one early career member as a co-investigator.

Applicants are also encouraged to follow a life course approach, adapting the intervention to one or more key life stage(s) critical for reducing the onset or progression of MLTC NCD, and to explore how to best implement digital technology interventions.

The study population may include patients with existing MLTC NCD, or existing NCDs (e.g., studies focusing on rolling out screening services for multiple NCDs). The study population may also include patients with chronic infectious disease(s) (e.g., studies that focus on integrating NCD management into an HIV or tuberculosis clinic) or a mixture of both.

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Stakeholders

This topic requires the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

For implementation research to have a strong likelihood of being taken up into policy or practice and informing the scale up of effective interventions, it is vital that project teams engage the appropriate stakeholders. Proposals should present a strategy to include the relevant decision makers such as policymakers, ministry officials, local authorities, non-governmental organisation leaders, community leaders as well as other stakeholders such as community groups, or other individuals or organizations involved in the implementation of the intervention, from the development to the implementation knowledge translation phase. It is also important to include stakeholders who can help sustain the project’s implementation, facilitate scale up, and use the knowledge generated from the project after the grant ends.

Stakeholders also include patients, their family members and carers. Their contributions should be nurtured through meaningful engagement from the outset, not only as participants in the research undertaken. Patient engagement throughout the research project is critical to developing patient-centred models of care.

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Eligibility

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;
• countries associated to Horizon Europe;
• low- and middle-income countries.

See the full list in the General Annexes.

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Consortium composition

Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call conditions, 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.

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.

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Budget

Total indicative budget is EUR 20 000 000.

The Commission estimates that an EU contribution between 3.00 and 4.00 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately.