On July 3, 2024, the European Commission and Canada signed the Association Agreement to Pillar II of Horizon Europe, which comes into force. Canadian institutions can now receive funding and coordinate projects as part of Horizon Europe's Pillar II tenders, including the Health Cluster and the Cancer Mission, as standard.

Canada joins Horizon Europe programme

Background: Associated states are not member states of the European Union, but contribute to the European framework program Horizon Europe. This means that institutions in the associated countries are not only eligible to participate but also to receive funding, can coordinate joint projects and contribute to meeting the minimum requirements for a consortium.

On June 16 2024 the European Artificial Intelligence Office (AI Office) was established within the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technologies (DG Connect) of the European Commission. The AI ​​Office was decided as part of the package of measures launched by the European Commission to support European start-ups and small and medium-sized companies in the development of trustworthy artificial intelligence. The package of measures followed the political agreement reached in December 2023 on the European Regulation on Artificial Intelligence ("AI Act").
The AI ​​Office will support the development and use of trustworthy AI and protect against risks. It will play a key role in the implementation of the new European Regulation on AI by supporting the governance bodies in the Member States in their tasks. It will also ensure a European approach to AI at the international level.

AI office on the European Commission website

The European Commission has published the 2023 annual report on the European Union's activities in the field of research and innovation and on the monitoring of Horizon Europe.
The report shows the research-related support measures for Ukraine and the measures to increase the internal security of the European Union. Horizon Europe provides, among other things, information about the status of the association, statistics on calls for tenders and success rates. The success rate for proposals in the health cluster is 21.8%.

Full report on the European Commission website

The European Commission published two reports on studies about the implementation of the EU Cancer Mission and the European Cancer Patient Digital Centre.

The report about the implementation of the EU Cancer Mission was written by focus groups with citizens in six EU Member States. Citizen engagement activities have been considered highly important in all phases of the Mission development and implementation, to ensure that the knowledge, needs, preferences, and potential of EU citizens are considered when developing interventions and actions to prevent and fight cancer.

The full report "Cancer prevention, early detection, and screening: EU citizen perceptions and experiences" can be found here.

The other reports deals with an operational concept for a European Cancer Patient Digital Centre (ECPDC). The ECPDC aims at increasing the quality of life of cancer patients and survivors, which is often characterised by a lack of understanding or insufficient consideration of patient needs during and after the treatment.

The full report "An operational concept for a European Cancer Patient Digital Centre" can be found here.

The DESIGN One Health Antimicrobial Resistance (OHAMR) project, which is preparing the new co-funded partnership OHAMR, is conducting a public survey on the final draft of its Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). The SRIA represents the vision, mission, goals and scientific priorities and implementation plan of the OHAMR. Researchers, stakeholders, policy makers, patient groups and all interested parties are invited to provide feedback on the SRIA.

The survey is open until May 30, 2024.

Survey on the JPI AMR website

The European Global Health EDCTP3 (“European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership”) has published a call for tenders on the Mpox outbreak. Due to the ongoing Mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo emergency funding of 5 million € are mobilized to support research and innovation projects that will advance our understanding of the ongoing epidemic, contribute to the development of preventive and management strategies and support an efficient public health response.

The call for proposals will open for submissions on 14 May and is expected to close on 29 May.

News message from EDCTP

The Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) has pre-published the drafts for Call 8. Following four topics are currently planned for the two-stage Call 8, which will be finalized and published in the coming weeks:

1. "A city-based approach to reducing cardiovascular mortality in Europe”
2. "Novel endpoints for osteoarthritis (OA) by applying big data analytics”
3. "Modelling regulatory sandbox mechanisms and enabling their deployment to support breakthrough innovation”
4. "Patient-centred clinical-study endpoints derived using digital health technologies”

The topics are currently being consulted with the States' Representatives Group and the Science and Innovation Panel. They can therefore change between the versions now published and the publication of the Call. Applicants should therefore check the final, approved topic texts after publication of the call for proposals. Release is expected on June 25, 2024.

More information and the draft for Call 8 can be found on the IHI website.

The European Commission has published an UPDATED Work Programme 2024!
Check out the new funding opportunities for Cluster 1 Health and the Cancer Mission

Cluster Health
Cancer Mission

Contribute to the development of the Horizon Europe work programme 2025 by filling in one or more surveys.

Responses submitted through the survey will contribute to the co-design of the work programme 2025, covering all 6 clusters, research infrastructures, European innovation ecosystems, the 5 EU Missions and the New European Bauhaus facility.

The feedback opportunity is open for 3 weeks from 15 April and closes on 6 May 2024 midday, CET.

Feedback opportunity for Horizon Europe work programme 2025

On March 20, 2024, the European Commission published the second Strategic Plan for Horizon Europe. Based on the strategic plan, the work programs and funding calls for 2025 to 2027 will be developed.
The plan sets out three key strategic orientations for EU research and innovation funding for the last three years of Horizon Europe:

• green transition;
• digital transition;
• a more resilient, competitive, inclusive and democratic Europe.

The orientations aim to address global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, digital transformation and an aging population.
Nine new European partnerships will be named, which will be set up from 2025. A partnership with “Brain Health” is planned for the health sector.
In addition, the priorities for each cluster - including the health cluster - are described in a separate chapter.

European Commission website

The European Commission is hosting virtual “EU Missions Info Days” on April 25-26, 2024.
In these, potential applicants are informed about the new calls for proposals within the five European missions: cancer, climate adaptation, water, cities and soils.
The Cancer Mission will be presented on April 26, 2023 from 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. (CET). A registration is not required. Further information can be found on the event website.
Following the Info Days, a virtual brokerage event for the Cancer Mission's calls for proposals will take place to support potential applicants in finding project partners.

EU Missions info days

The European Commission has published the report of the expert group to support the monitoring of European missions. The group developed a conceptual understanding of missions as a policy approach in the context of European research and innovation policy and in the report proposes a monitoring framework and indicators focused on development and implementation "beyond Horizon Europe".

Final report of Commission Expert Group to support the monitoring of EU missions

A widely used template for consortium agreements, DESCA (“Development of a Simplified Consortium Agreement”) has now been updated and adapted to the requirements of Lump-Sum projects in Horizon Europe.

DESCA website

The European Partnership for Personalised Medicine (EP PerMed) held its first general assembly meeting on 23 and 24 January 2024 in Brussels with more than 50 partner organisations from 24 countries and 10 European regions. EP PerMed partners and representatives from the European Commission and the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) gathered to discuss the current and upcoming work plans of EP PerMed as well as financial and administrative aspects of the partnership.

Please find more information and impressions about the Kick-off Meeting here.

The first EP PerMed call on "Identification or Validation of Targets for Personalised Medicine Approaches (PMTargets)" is already open for submission of research proposals. Please find more information about the call here.