Ocean and coastal waters carbon- and biodiversity-rich ecosystems and habitats in Europe and the Polar Regions

Closed

Code: 26944 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-CL6-2023-CLIMATE-01-3 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment (Cluster 6)(2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 22/12/2022 | End submission calls: 12/04/2023

Actions should aim at developing innovative approaches to address only one of the following options:

Option A: European and polar blue carbon hotspots and priority areas for climate policy frameworks and effective management – The research actions should map European and polar blue carbon hotspots and priority areas for carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation potential, including an estimate of the area/extent of the habitats. In doing so, the successful proposal should rely on the synergistic use of Earth Observation data (in-situ, airborne, satellite) and models to monitor, evaluate and quantify both carbon fluxes and carbon stocks and stock changes in ocean and coastal reservoirs, to evaluate current trends and improve modelling skills and predictions, including using space and in-situ existing datasets and climate records that can be used as proxy (e.g., Copernicus, EMODnet).

Option B: Uncover mitigation opportunities of newly emerging European and polar blue carbon habitats – The research action should conduct exploratory research into potentially new habitats emerging that could yield both mitigation and biodiversity benefits, if appropriately managed. Among the emerging habitats that should be tested in terms of their emerging role in carbon storage and sequestration, with the aim of understanding of carbon sink balances and climate change–feedback variability and reduce uncertainty in model projections, are: blue carbon change with sea ice losses; blue carbon gains from glacier retreat along fjords (fjordic blue carbon, i.e. seabed biological carbon gains as a result of recent rapid glacier retreat along fjords).

Pilot network of climate-positive organic farms

Closed

Code: 26942 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-CL6-2023-CLIMATE-01-5 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment (Cluster 6)(2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 22/12/2022 | End submission calls: 12/04/2023

The conservation and enhancement of Earth’s natural terrestrial carbon sinks such as soils and plants, forests, farmed lands and wetlands is crucial. The European Green Deal gives research and innovation (R&I) a significant role to play in supporting the design and implementation of policies that will ensure the achievement of the EU’s climate objectives. Organic farming relies on management practices that contribute to climate change mitigation, with additional benefits for the environment and biodiversity.

Additional activities for the European Partnership Water Security for the Planet (Water4All)

Closed

Code: 26939 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-CL6-2023-CLIMATE-01-1 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment (Cluster 6)(2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 22/12/2022 | End submission calls: 12/04/2023

The objective of this action is to continue to provide support to the European Partnership Water4All identified in the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2021-2024 and first implemented under the topic HORIZON-CL6-2021-CLIMATE-01-02: European Partnership Water Security for the Planet, and in particular to fund additional activities (which may also be undertaken by additional partners).

Pragmatic clinical trials on minimally invasive diagnostics

Closed

Code: 26909 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-MISS-2023-CANCER-01-03 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Missions | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 12/04/2023

While cancer research and innovation have generated novel treatment options, cancer patients across Europe need access to minimally-invasive, patient-centred diagnostic interventions which keep up with increasing demand in a complex and fragmented oncology healthcare landscape with increasing healthcare costs.
Pragmatic clinical trials focus on choosing between care options. Pragmatic trials evaluate effectiveness, the effect of diagnostics in routine (real-world) clinical practice.

Maintaining access to regular health and care services in case of cross-border emergencies

Closed

Code: 26907 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-CARE-04-01 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

It is timely to take stock and identify lessons for maintaining care delivery. The goal is to be better prepared for the multiple challenges faced by health and care systems during emergencies, and ensure that necessary access to regular health and care services can be maintained.

It is important to have the right tools for maintaining access to regular health and care services, while also accommodating the more urgent needs of migrants, for example.

Pandemic preparedness and response: Sustaining established coordination mechanisms for European adaptive platform trials and/or for cohort networks

Closed

Code: 26905 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-DISEASE-03-05 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

This topic aims at maintaining and strengthening existing strategic coordination mechanisms across adaptive platform trials and across cohort studies in Europe and beyond for avoiding redundancies, promoting complementarities and facilitating cooperation among EU-funded clinical research for infectious diseases. Proposals should strengthen the leading role of the EU in clinical research preparedness for future epidemics and pandemics, through ensuring coordination of the European adaptive platform trials and of the European cohort studies. The coordination mechanisms support the longer-term perspective of preparedness for future infectious disease epidemics and pandemics, where the networks enable the conduct of perpetual platform trials and of perpetual strategic cohorts with the in-built agility to pivot to emerging diseases when an epidemic strikes.

Novel approaches for palliative and end-of-life care for non-cancer patients

Closed

Code: 26903 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-DISEASE-03-01 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

The complexity of health conditions related to life-threatening and chronic diseases, acute and chronic pain, late or long-term side effects as consequences of diseases and also their treatments affect quality of life of patients and their families and pose an immense societal and economic burden. Palliative and end-of-life care approaches improve quality of life of patients and professional and family caregivers through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification, assessment and treatment of pain and other factors such as physical, psychosocial and spiritual problems. Therefore, a need exists to strengthen the evidence base for available patient-centred effective interventions improving quality of life and outcomes of patients of all ages in the domains of palliative and end-of-life care.

Resilience and mental wellbeing of the health and care workforce

Closed

Code: 26899 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-CARE-04-02 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

A resilient workforce in the health and care sectors is essential for the sustainability and prosperity of our societies. This adds to the struggle of health and care systems to attract new people to their workforce, but also to maintain the ones already working. A combination of factors such as changes in work organisation, budgetary and administrative pressures faced by health and care systems, systemic shortages of health professionals, precarious working conditions, structural inequalities and leaps in technological innovation may leave health and care workers with feelings of helplessness, physical or mental vulnerability or moral injury.
Technological innovations (including digitisation, big data and artificial intelligence applications) provide opportunities for a more efficient provision of health and care services, and for lightening the workload of health and care workers.

Interventions in city environments to reduce risk of non-communicable disease (Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases – GACD)

Closed

Code: 26897 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-DISEASE-03-03 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

The topic is focused on implementation research with the potential to reduce the risks of NCDs in cities in LMICs and/or vulnerable populations in HICs. Proposals should focus on implementation science around evidence-based interventions that promote healthy behaviours, and that have the potential to profoundly reduce the risk of chronic diseases and multi-morbidity. The proposed implementation research must be focus on addressing NCD risk factors associated with city environments and related health inequities. In all cases, the selected study population(s) must live in cities, which may include informal settlements near urban centres, peri-urban environments, and city centres.

Pandemic preparedness and response: Understanding vaccine induced-immunity

Closed

Code: 26895 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-DISEASE-03-17 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

Vaccines are a critical component needed to bring infectious disease pandemics under control. The availability of effective vaccines that are able to induce a strong and durable immune response are critical to respond to health threats caused by infectious disease epidemics or pandemics. A proactive approach to understanding the factors that affect vaccine durability and strength is necessary to ensure development of effective vaccines for future infectious disease outbreaks.

European Partnership on Rare Diseases

Closed

Code: 26893 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-DISEASE-07-01 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 19/09/2023

The partnership should contribute to achieving the objectives of the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe, in terms of fulfilling unmet medical needs (e.g. for rare diseases with so called “orphan medicinal products”) and ensuring that the benefits of innovation reach patients in the EU.
The co-funded European Partnership on rare diseases should be implemented based on the priorities identified in the SRIA and through a joint programme of activities ranging from coordinating and funding transnational research to highly integrative and community-driven ‘in-house’ activities such as innovation strategies for the efficient exploitation of research results, EU clinical trial preparedness activities, optimisation of research infrastructures and resources, including networking, training and dissemination activities.

Health impacts of endocrine-disrupting chemicals: bridging science-policy gaps by addressing persistent scientific uncertainties

Closed

Code: 26891 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-ENVHLTH-02-03 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are of increasing importance in chemical regulations in the European Union. This approach would aim at, inter alia, minimising overall exposure of humans and the environment to endocrine disruptors, paying particular attention to exposures during important periods of development of an organism, such as foetal development and puberty, possibly integrating a life course approach, as well as accelerating the development of a thorough research basis for effective and forward-looking decision-making. This includes research for the further management of chemicals (including multi-constituent chemicals as well as chemical mixtures), the understanding of the mechanistic effects of endocrine disruptors and their dose-response relationships (including at the molecular and cellular level through the use of new approach methodologies, such as ‘multiomics’, cheminformatics, in vitro 2D and 3D models, in vivo models and computational approaches), and the collection, sharing, harmonisation and combination of robust data sources.

Development and harmonisation of methodologies for assessing digital health technologies in Europe

Closed

Code: 26889 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-IND-06-07 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

The proposals under this topic are expected to develop and harmonise methodologies for assessing digital health technologies (including mhealth apps and telehealth, as well as Artificial Intelligence powered health technologies) in order to facilitate assessment of their added value at individual, health system and society levels and facilitate the cross-border deployment of digital health services within the EU. Existing Health Technology Assessment (HTA) methodology is well developed for health technologies such as medicinal products, but also for some categories of medical devices; however digitalisation raises new methodological challenges to the standardisation of assessment criteria such as privacy, cybersecurity, data storage and handling, interoperability, usability etc. Also including aspects like learning curves, iterative development of innovations, variability between settings, determining optimal timing of evaluations in the development process (maturity) are not yet solved.

Towards structuring brain health research in Europe

Closed

Code: 26884 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-DISEASE-03-06 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

Member States and Associated Countries have agreed to step up their coordination in the area of brain research, which could take the form of a European partnership on Brain Health in the second Strategic Plan of Horizon Europe.

Evidence-based interventions for promotion of mental and physical health in changing working environments (post-pandemic workplaces)

Closed

Code: 26882 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-ENVHLTH-02-02 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

Mental health and ergonomic-related problems affect a significant number of EU workers. Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are one of the most common work-related health problems in the EU and workers and managers commonly identify stress, depression and anxiety as serious psychosocial outcomes of workplace exposures. Changes in the organisation of work can bring flexibility that allows more people to enter the labour force, but may also lead to psychosocial problems.
Some workplaces have either become exclusively virtual or they have evolved into a ‘hybrid’ model (e.g. multilocational working, home office), some work tasks and processes performed virtually and others requiring physical presence. A significant number of jobs are performed at clients’ premises or require workers to commute long distances and/or cross borders regularly. Data on how these affect their mental/physical health and well-being is scarce.

Clinical trials of combined Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs)

Closed

Code: 26879 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-TOOL-05-01 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

The subjects of this topic are combined ATMPs (Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products). Such combined ATMPs are composed of an ATMP and one or more medical devices or one or more active implantable medical devices, and their cellular or tissue part must either contain viable cells or tissues, or non-viable cells or tissues liable for exerting the primary action on the human body.
Research should focus on advanced stages of clinical development with regulatory work on the Medical Device part completed and safety studies of the combination product in an advanced stage.

Better integration and use of health-related real-world and research data, including genomics, for improved clinical outcomes

Closed

Code: 26872 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-TOOL-05-04 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

This topic aims to support proposals focusing on the integration of health data from multiple sources (e.g. electronic health records, genomics, medical imaging, laboratory and diagnostic results, pathogen data, public health registries and other clinical research data) by linking real-world and clinical research data. The data integration should be exemplified in several use-cases, i.e. well-justified groups of diseases (excluding cancer), within and/or across medical domains, and pave the way towards improved health outcomes. At least one of those use cases should build on the use of whole genome sequence data.

Harnessing the potential of real-time data analysis and secure Point-of-Care computing for the benefit of person-centred health and care delivery

Closed

Code: 26866 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-TOOL-05-05 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

The proposals under this topic are expected to develop and test innovative tools, devices and systems for point-of-care applications, including but not limited to robotics, photonics, bio-sensing, artificial intelligence etc. The proposals should demonstrate advancement and integration of technologies from proof-of-concept to prototype demonstration in operational environment. Devices and systems should be designed, developed and tested vis-à-vis defined use cases, based on the appropriate involvement of clinicians and other stakeholders, ensuring they can be seamlessly integrated into existing digital infrastructures and clinical workflows. The use cases in care settings could include but are not limited to surgery workflows, Intensive Care Unit workflows and integration of remote patient monitoring into clinical workflows. Data quality, integration and interoperability, as well as issues of cybersecurity and data protection have to be addressed. Clinical studies should be an integral part of the work proposed, with developmental iteration steps and consultation of regulators included as appropriate. Establishing synergies with AI Testing and Experimentation Facilities, European Digital Innovation Hubs and other similar initiatives is encouraged. Proposals must include a short description of initial business plan as part of the exploitation activities.

Developing a Data Quality and Utility Label for the European Health Data Space

Closed

Code: 26864 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-TOOL-05-09 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

The European Health Data Space (EHDS) will provide a common EU framework for secondary use of health data such as research, innovation, regulatory purposes, policymaking and personalised medicine. It will enable data users to have access to large amounts of health data through health data access bodies empowered with the EHDS legal provisions to overcome existing limitations regarding the processing of health data for secondary uses. To support data users in the discovery and selection of datasets for their purposes, there is a growing need to develop a data quality and utility framework to articulate the characteristics and the potential usefulness of datasets. This framework will also support data holders in identifying and addressing areas of improvement which can, in turn, allow for wider and better use of these datasets. The proposed framework should take into account the various needs of data users whilst at the same time avoid becoming an excessive burden on data holders which will need to produce the data quality and utility label.

Environmentally sustainable and climate neutral health and care systems

Closed

Code: 26862 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-CARE-04-03 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Health (Cluster 1) (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 12/01/2023 | End submission calls: 13/04/2023

Health and care systems are undergoing structural changes, for example by strengthening primary care and community-based care, strengthening digitalisation and making sure patients are treated or cared for at the most efficient level. This offers the possibility to connect structural changes with an environmental transformation.
Research and innovation activities under this topic should be specific to health and care sectors. They should include cost studies when relevant (environmental impacts and benefits to be quantified through the life cycle thinking approach (e.g. LCA/SLCA), to be effectively implemented in line with the European Green Deal and the Zero Pollution Action Plan) and piloting research results onsite in hospitals or other care settings while generating accessible knowledge could be included.