A first collection of opportunities for international cooperation relevant for Digital Health & Active and Healthy Ageing

Let’s start from Horizon Europe!

The European Framework Program for Research and Innovation – Horizon Europe for the period 2021-2027 – continues to be inspired by a general principle of openness, in continuity with the motto “Open to the World” that featured the former Horizon 2020. Horizon Europe – as it is explained in the legislative text – intends, indeed, to promote and integrate cooperation with third countries and with international organizations and initiatives, taking into account the interests of the Union, international commitments, scientific diplomacy, as well as mutual benefits and reciprocity, for example in the field of Open Science. COVID-19 pandemic has further amplified the relevance of global challenges and highlighted the interdependence between ecosystems, countries and regions, as well as the need to strengthen international cooperation in R&I. Therefore, on the other hand, the objectives of European cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) remain to strengthen the Union’s scientific excellence and international competitiveness, the ability to attract the best talents to retain them in Europe, as well as to contribute to addressing global challenges by projecting European values at international level.

The new international cooperation strategy on R&I, which will integrate the provisions of Horizon Europe, is included in the Communication of the EC on the Global Approach to Research and Innovation. Europe’s strategy for international cooperation in a changing world.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE

Participation is open to any legal entity, regardless of their place of work, including legal entities from third countries not associated with the Program or international organizations, except for any different provision set out in the Work Program or in specific Calls. In the vast majority of collaborative projects, the consortium must be composed of at least three independent legal entities established in a different Member State or Associated Country. Furthermore, at least one of the entities must be established in a Member State.

WHO CAN BE FUNDED

Legal entities established in a Member State or an Associated Country can be financed. Entities based in a non-associated third country must independently bear the cost of their participation in Horizon Europe. Entities established in non-associated low-middle income third countries and, exceptionally, in other non-associated third countries, can be financed if:

The third country is identified in the Work Program adopted by the European Commission; or
The European Commission or the funding body considers that the participation of the concerned entity is essential for the implementation of the project.

Here below you can find a short overview of the funding schemes within Horizon Europe that currently include relevant opportunities for international partners in the field of Digital Health & AHA. The related single topics/Call for Proposals are listed in the following table, ordered per deadline for applications and keywords!

Keywords: #AGEING #AI #BIG DATA #BOTTOM-UP #CHRONIC #COVID 19 #CYBERSECURITY#DIAGNOSTICS #DIGITAL HEALTH #EDUCATION #GENETICS #HTA #INFRASTRUCTURE #INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION #MEDICAL DEVICES #MENTAL HEALTH #NEURO #NON-COMMUNICABLE #PERSONALIZED MEDICINE #PHARMA #POLICY #PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM #ROBOTICS

Relevant Funding Schemes

Research and innovation actions (RIA)

Activities that aim to create new knowledge and/or explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution. They therefore include basic and applied research, development and integration of technology, testing, demonstration and validation on a small-scale prototype, in a laboratory or simulated environment.

Innovation actions (IA)

Activities aimed at plan and design new, altered or improved products, processes or services, possibly including prototyping, testing, demonstration, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication.

Coordination and support actions (CSA)

Activities which contribute to the objectives of the program and which are not research and innovation activities in the strict sense.

MSCA Doctoral Networks

The aim is to train PhD students with an innovative, creative and entrepreneurial spirit, able to face current and future challenges. This scheme intends to increase the attractiveness and excellence of doctoral training in Europe by providing researchers with the right combination of scientific and transversal skills through international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral mobility. The consortium must be composed of at least three legal entities established in a different Member State or Associated Country and with at least one of the entities established in a Member State (general requirement of Horizon Europe). Furthermore, no more than 40% of the European contribution can be awarded to beneficiaries of the same country or to a single IERO or international organization.

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships

They aim to improve the creative and innovative potential of researchers with a PhD and to acquire new skills through international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral mobility. They are open to excellent researchers of any nationality, including researchers wishing to return to Europe, researchers displaced due to conflicts in their country and those returning to research after a period of inactivity. The project proposal must be submitted by a single independent legal entity (the host organization), established in a Member State or Associated Country of Horizon Europe. The researcher must have a PhD title on the deadline date of the call and respect the mobility principle, i.e. he cannot have resided or carried out his main activity (work, study, etc.) in the country of the beneficiary organization (European Postdoctoral Fellowships ), or in the third country (Global Postdoctoral Fellowships) for more than 12 months during the 36 months preceding the deadline of the call. Furthermore, on the expiry date of the call, the researcher must have achieved a maximum of 8 years of experience (for full-time research activities) starting from the date of obtaining the PhD degree.

European Innovation Council

The EIC provides financial support, investment opportunities and coaching to breakthrough and disruptive innovation project, from deep tech founders to start-ups, from entrepreneurial researchers to investors, and from corporate partners to global markets. There might be room for international partners in the EIC Pathfinder scheme for radically new technologies emerging from research excellence.

Click on Topic ID to access the official page of the Programme and find more details!

Topic ID Programme	Topic	Type of Action	Deadline model	Deadline	Budget/Project	Keyword
HORIZON-MSCA-2021-INCO-01-01 Horizon Europe 1 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions	MSCA International Cooperation 2021	CSA	Single Stage	05/10/2021	2 mil./1 Project	#BOTTOM-UP #INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
HORIZON-EIC-2021-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-02 Horizon Europe 3 European Innovation Council	Tools to measure and stimulate activity in Brain Tissue	EIC Pathfinder	Single Stage	27/10/2021	3-4 mil.	#NEURO #MEDICAL DEVICES
HORIZON-EIC-2021-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-03 Horizon Europe 3 European Innovation Council	Emerging Technologies in Cell & Gene Therapy	EIC Pathfinder	Single Stage	27/10/2021	3-4 mil.	#GENETICS #MEDICAL DEVICES
HORIZON-HLTH-2022-STAYHLTH-01-01-two-stage Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 1 – Health	Boosting mental health in Europe in times of change	RIA	Two-stage	01/02/2022	7 mil./7 Projects	#MENTAL HEALTH #EDUCATION #POLICY #COVID 19
HORIZON-HLTH-2022-STAYHLTH-01-04-two-stage Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 1 – Health	Trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) tools to predict the risk of chronic non-communicable diseases and/or their progression	RIA	Two-stage	01/02/2022	6 mil./10 Projects	#AI #CHRONIC #NON-COMMUNICABLE
HORIZON-HLTH-2022-TOOL-12-01-two-stage Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 1 – Health	Computational models for new patient stratification strategies	RIA	Two-stage	01/02/2022	60 mil./10 Projects	#BIG DATA #PERSONALIZED MEDICINE #AI
HORIZON-CL2-2022-TRANSFORMATIONS-01-06 Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 2 – Culture, creativity and inclusive society	Overcoming discrimination for an inclusive labour market	RIA	Single Stage	20/04/2022	9 mil./3 Projects	#COVID 19 #MENTAL HEALTH
HORIZON-HLTH-2022-STAYHLTH-02-01 Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 1 – Health	Personalised blueprint of chronic inflammation in health-to-disease transition	RIA	Single Stage	21/04/2022	50 mil./7 Projects	#CHRONIC #DIGITAL HEALTH #PERSONALIZED MEDICINE
HORIZON-HLTH-2022-TOOL-11-01 Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 1 – Health	Optimising effectiveness in patients of existing prescription drugs for major diseases (except cancer) with the use of biomarkers	RIA	Single Stage	21/04/2022	60 mil./6 Projects	#PHARMA #DIAGNOSTICS
HORIZON-HLTH-2022-TOOL-11-02 Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 1 – Health	New methods for the effective use of real-world data and/or synthetic data in regulatory decision-making and/or in health technology assessment	RIA	Single Stage	21/04/2022	35 mil./5 Projects	#AI #MEDICAL DEVICES #DIGITAL HEALTH #HTA
HORIZON-HLTH-2022-IND-13-01 Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 1 – Health	Enhancing cybersecurity of connected medical devices	RIA	Single Stage	21/04/2022	20 mil./3 Projects	#MEDICAL DEVICES #CYBERSECURITY #BIG DATA #AI
HORIZON-HLTH-2022-IND-13-02 Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 1 – Health	Scaling up multi-party computation, data anonymisation techniques, and synthetic data generation	RIA	Single Stage	21/04/2022	30 mil./4 Projects	#INFRASTRUCTURE #AI #BIG DATA
HORIZON-HLTH-2022-IND-13-04 Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 1 – Health	up a European Smart Health Innovation Hub	CSA	Single Stage	21/04/2022	2 mil./1 Project	#DIGITAL HEALTH #AGEING #INFRASTRUCTURES #AI #ROBOTICS
HORIZON-HLTH-2022-IND-13-05 Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 1 – Health	Setting up a European Electronic Health Record Exchange Format (EEHRxF) Ecosystem	CSA	Single Stage	21/04/2022	2 mil./1 Project	#DIGITAL HEALTH
HORIZON-CL3-2022-DRS-01-04 Horizon Europe 2 Cluster 3 – Civil Security for Society	Better understanding of citizens’ behavioural and psychological reactions in the event of a disaster or crisis situation	RIA	Single Stage	23/11/2022	10 mil./2 Projects	#MENTAL HEALTH #COVID 19 #PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM

Highlights: latest from Canada and CIHR!

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is Canada’s federal funding agency for health research. It is composed of 13 Institutes, and collaborates with partners and researchers to support the discoveries and innovations that improve our health and strengthen our health care system. CIHR’s mission is to create new scientific knowledge and to enable its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health care system. Each of these 13 Institutes is dedicated to a specific focus area, linking and supporting researchers pursuing common goals. Each Institute embraces a range of research from fundamental bio-medical and clinical research, to research on health systems, health services, the health of populations, societal and cultural dimensions of health and environmental influences on health.

The two CIHR Institutes involved in IDIH are the Institute of Aging (IA) and the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (IHSPR), both have been actively involved in supporting research in the area of digital health solutions for older adults.

IA and IHSPR have a long history of International collaboration. Besides the work with the World Health Organization on a variety of research challenges for the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing, areas that are currently addressed internationally include information and communication technologies to support healthy aging (AAL- Active and Assisted Living Programme), Demographic Change (JPI, More Years, Better Lives,), Neurodegenerative disease (JPND), and Health Services and Systems (To-Reach).

In terms of upcoming funding opportunities at CIHR, IHSPR is aiming to launch an opportunity to Accelerate Evidence on Health Care Delivery System Innovations that Achieve the Quadruple Aim and Improve Health Equity Catalyst Grants. These grants will support one-year knowledge creation and knowledge implementation projects that will focus on macro to meso-level innovations in how health care systems and services are organized, delivered, governed, held accountable, financed, and/or funded, and the impact of those innovations on one or more of the Quadruple Aim goals and health equity. The areas include:

Integration of care (including integrated delivery systems and continuity of care)
Primary, home and community-based care
Long-term care (including nursing home care and care provided in retirement homes and assisted living facilities)
The health care workforce (including funding and remuneration, training and support, scopes of practice, interdisciplinary collaboration)
Integrating upstream prevention within health care delivery settings to improve health, health equity and well-being, and address the social determinants of health

These are one year grants ($100,000) for Canadians, but PI’s can partner internationally. This funding opportunity is not specific to digital health for AHA, however digital health for AHA is within scope of the Funding opportunity.

EU: International Cooperation for Research & Innovation