Funding programme

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

Cluster 1 aims to improve and protect the health and well-being of citizens of all ages by generating new knowledge, developing innovative solutions and integrating where relevant a gender perspective to prevent, diagnose, monitor, treat and cure diseases. Further aims include developing health technologies, mitigating health risks, protecting populations and promoting good health and well-being in general and at work. This cluster also aims to make public health systems more cost-effective, equitable and sustainable, prevent and tackle poverty-related diseases and support and enable patients' participation and self-management.

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Call overview

This call aims to explore medical conditions that fail to be recognised and/or be correctly diagnosed in a significant proportion of patients.

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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 “Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden”. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim to deliver results that are directed, tailored towards and contributing to most of the following expected outcomes:

• The scientific and clinical communities make effective use of state-of-the-art information, data, technologies, tools and best practices to better understand the condition, underpinning the development of diagnostics, therapeutics and/or preventive strategies.
• The scientific and clinical community exchange data, knowledge and best practices, thereby strengthening their collaboration and building knowledge and care networks in Europe and beyond.
• The scientific and clinical community make wide use of newly established and where relevant open access databases and/or integrate them with existing infrastructures for storage and sharing of collected data according to FAIR^[1] principles, thereby encouraging further use of the data.
• Policymakers and funders are informed of the research advances made and consider further support in light of the sustainability of the studies.
• Patients and caregivers are constructively engaged with the research, which also caters for their needs.
• Health professionals have access to and use improved clinical guidelines on diagnosis and/or treatment of the condition.

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Scope

Scope :A number of medical conditions fail to be recognised and/or be correctly diagnosed in a significant proportion of patients. As a consequence, they are inadequately treated and often can become a chronic and high burden for the patient. These medical conditions, including:

1. myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome,
2. autism,
3. gynaecological diseases,
4. low back pain,
5. other,

may be insufficiently researched even though they manifest with high prevalence.

Applicants should explicitly state in their proposal which of the above medical conditions is targeted and the proposed work should address only this specific medical condition.

Research actions under this topic should include all the following activities, ensuring multidisciplinary approaches and a broad representation of stakeholders in the consortia:

• Proposals should address the gaps in robust, scientific evidence for improved policies and practices to tackle such a medical condition and aim at identifying the pathophysiological mechanism(s) (e.g. genetic, cellular and molecular) and potential risk factors (e.g. psychological and environmental) of the medical condition through basic, pre-clinical and/or clinical research. These efforts should underpin the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and/or preventive strategies for the condition.
• Proposals should demonstrate that the medical condition under study is insufficiently understood, inaccurately diagnosed or inadequately treated in a significant proportion of patients, and as such represent a high burden for patients and society. This could be through referencing key literature.
• Sex and gender-related aspects, age, ethnicity, socio-economic, lifestyle and behavioural factors should be taken into consideration. In addition, the emotional and societal long-term effects of these chronic disorders for the affected individuals should be addressed.
• Where applicable, the development of biomarkers and other technologies for diagnosis, monitoring in patients, and stratification of patient groups should be considered.
• Where applicable, the development of clinically relevant, (non-)human model systems that can complement clinical investigations should be considered.
• Exploitation of existing data, biobanks, registries and cohorts is expected, together with the generation of new (e.g. genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics) data.
• To enable sharing of samples, quality data and advanced analytical tools, it is encouraged to make use of existing infrastructures developed at the European^[5] or national level.
• Inclusion of patients or patient organisations in the research is strongly encouraged, to ensure that their views are considered.
• Participation of startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is strongly encouraged.

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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 specifics in the General Annexes document.

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Consortium composition

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.

If eligible for funding, legal entities established in non-associated third countries may exceptionally participate in this Coordination and support action as a beneficiary or affiliated entity.

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Project Duration

The project starting date and duration will be fixed in the grant agreement.

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Budget

The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 30 000 000.

The Commission estimates that an EU contribution of around EUR6.00 million would allow these outcomes to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of a proposal requesting different amounts.

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