Open Call: Boosting Innovation for a better understanding of the Determinants of Health

Scope

• With a view to harnessing new science and technologies, this topic aims to fund pre-competitive research and innovation for novel tools, methods, technologies etc. that will foster the development of health innovations to prevent, intercept, diagnose, treat, and manage diseases and enable recovery more efficiently.
• Accordingly, applicants must assemble a collaborative public-private partnership consortium reflecting the integrative and cross-sectoral nature of IHI JU, that is capable of addressing the challenge(s) and scope of the IHI JU Specific Objective 1 ‘contribute towards a better understanding of the determinants of health and priority disease areas’, as defined in IHI JU’s legal basis and described in more detail in the IHI JU SRIA:
  • Applicants should consider the following points in their proposals:
    • address an unmet public health need based on at least one of the below:
      • the high burden of the disease for patients and/or society due to its severity and/or the number of people affected by it;
      • the high economic impact of the disease for patients and society;
      • the transformational nature of the potential results on innovation processes where projects are not focussed on individual disease areas (e.g. health data analytics).
    • demonstrate the ability to translate research into innovative solutions that can be integrated/implemented into the healthcare ecosystem (taking into consideration the fragmented nature of European healthcare systems) and/or in industrial processes.

Expected Impact

• The actions to be funded under this topic are expected to achieve the following:
  • contribute to one or more of IHI JU’s expected impacts linked to Specific Objective 1 as set out in the IHI JU SRIA, i.e.:
    • patients benefit from preventive treatment or early disease intervention before onset of symptoms;
    • prevention and early diagnosis of disease combined with better understanding of the mechanisms involved, leading to the development of more cost-effective strategies;
    • patients benefitting from improved healthcare through regular monitoring of critical parameters using validated tools;
    • development of new vaccine strategies targeted to specific sub-populations;
    • increased preparedness of EU healthcare systems for disease outbreaks.
  • contribute to strengthening the competitiveness of the EU’s health industry, via increased economic activity in the development of health technologies, in particular, integrated health solutions, thus fostering European technological leadership and the digital transformation of their societies.
• The actions are expected to contribute to EU programmes, initiatives and policies such as the European Green Deal, Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, the EU Mission on Cancer, the European Virtual Human Twins Initiative, the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), the European Commission’s proposal for the European Health Data Space (EHDS), and the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, where relevant.

Expected Outcome

• Applicants must define the outcomes expected to be achieved by the project, ensuring that they contribute to at least one of IHI JU’s potential outputs linked to the IHI JU’s Specific Objective 1 ‘contribute towards a better understanding of the determinants of health and priority disease areas’, as set out in the IHI JU Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA).
• Actions (projects) to be funded under this topic must deliver results that address public health needs and support the development of future health innovations that are safe, people-centred, effective, cost-effective and affordable for patients and for health care systems.
• The expected outcomes may cover the entire spectrum of care and may be health technologies centred around disease areas and/or key themes such as prevention, precision diagnostics, personalised medicine, and chronic disease management. They may also include solutions for key enablers such as digital data and solutions, artificial intelligence (AI), regulatory science, greener and more sustainable healthcare, and implementation science.

For more information, visit European Commission.