Public Procurement Of Innovative Solutions For Improving Citizens' Access To Healthcare Through Integrated Or Personalised Approaches

Topics under this destination are directed towards the Key Strategic Orientation 2 “The Digital transition” and Key Strategic Orientation 3 “A more resilient, competitive, inclusive, and democratic Europe” of Horizon Europe’s strategic plan 2025-2027^[1].

Research and Innovation supported under this destination should contribute to the following expected impact, set out in the strategic plan impact summary for the Health Cluster: “healthcare systems provide equal access to innovative, sustainable and high-quality healthcare thanks to the development and uptake of safe, cost-effective and people-centred solutions. This is to be accompanied by management models focusing on population health, health systems resilience, and health equity and patient safety, and also improved evidence-informed health policies”.

Health systems are affected by limitations in sustainability and resilience, and face inequalities in access to high-quality and acceptable healthcare services. Health systems need to become more effective, efficient, accessible, fiscally and environmentally sustainable, and resilient in order to cope with public health emergencies, support healthcare workforce, adapt to environmental challenges like climate change, and contribute to social justice and cohesion. The transformation and modernisation of health systems will remain an important challenge for many years to come, but it also holds a significant opportunity to generate evidence, leverage existing and emerging solutions, implement digital and data-driven innovation and develop more accessible, cost-effective, flexible and equitable health systems.

Research and Innovation under this destination should aim to support the transformation of healthcare systems ensuring fair and inclusive access to high-quality, acceptable, sustainable healthcare for all. Funded activities will focus on developing innovative, practical, scalable and financially sound solutions, that improve governance, provide decision-makers with new evidence, tools, and technologies, and ensure long-term fiscal, environmental and climate sustainability. A patient-centred approach should be adopted, improving patients’ health outcomes, empowering patients, fostering active dialogue among stakeholders (e.g. citizens, patients, caregivers, healthcare providers), and encouraging social innovation. Research and Innovation actions should prioritise supporting healthcare professionals and providers, ensuring they have the resources and tools needed to meet the diverse needs and preferences of citizens. Research and Innovation should facilitate scalable and transferable solutions that can be applied across different healthcare systems and national, regional, and local contexts. This should include generating knowledge that supports the transfer of solutions between countries, including measures to address health inequalities. Research and Innovation activities under this destination will contribute to, among other things, the European Care Strategy^[2], the digital transformation of health and care in the EU^[3], the European Pillar of Social Rights^{[4], [5]}, the EU strategy on adaptation to climate^[6], the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe^[7], the European Health Data Space (EHDS)^[8], the Strategy for European Life Sciences^[9] and the European Green Deal^[10]. They align with the Commission's Political Guidelines for 2024-2029^[11], which include efforts to complete the European Health Union by promoting access for all to high-quality and affordable healthcare, fostering a resilient and innovative health ecosystem, and strengthening the competitiveness of the European Union^[12].

In this Work Programme part, the focus of this destination will be on public procurement of innovative solutions for integrated or personalised care, aiming to develop and test solutions that improve access to and provision of healthcare. It will also support personalised medicine approaches to reduce adverse drug reactions due to the administration of multiple medication, and research to identify and address low-value care in health and care systems, improving healthcare outcomes, efficiency, and fiscal sustainability.

To increase the impact of EU investments under Horizon Europe, the Commission encourages and supports cooperation among EU-funded projects to foster cross-fertilisation and synergies. This includes networking, joint activities such as workshops, knowledge exchange, best practices development, and joint communication activities. Synergies can be explored not only between projects funded under the same topic, but also between projects funded under other topics, Clusters or Pillars of Horizon Europe. For instance, collaborations may arise between projects related to European health research infrastructures (under Pillar I), the EIC^[13] strategic challenges on health (under Pillar III), or across the Clusters of Pillar II such as Cluster “Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society” focusing e.g. on the long-term sustainability of public health systems (e.g. economic and organisational models and measures for cost effectiveness and fiscal sustainability), or Cluster “Digital, Industry and Space” focusing on the digitalisation of the health sector, including the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The Commission aims to foster synergies between Horizon Europe and other EU programmes. To this end, applicants are encouraged to explore the funding opportunities available through the EU4Health Programme (2021-2027)^[14], the EU's public health programme, as a means of capitalising on potential collaborations and maximising impact.

Expected impacts:

Proposals for topics under this destination should set out a credible pathway to contributing to ensuring access to innovative, sustainable, inclusive and high-quality healthcare, and more specifically to one or several of the following impacts:

• Health and social care services and systems have improved governance mechanisms, making them more effective, efficient, accessible, resilient, trusted and sustainable, from fiscal, organisational and environmental perspectives. This includes shifting from hospital-centred to community-based, people-centred and integrated healthcare structures, embedding technological innovations and prioritising health promotion and disease prevention and management.
• Healthcare providers are trained and equipped with the skills and competences needed for future healthcare systems that are modernised, digitally transformed and equipped with safe innovative tools, technologies and digital solutions for healthcare. This will involve better patient management, improved patient engagement and health outcomes, reorganised workflows, and improved resource management.
• Citizens play a key role in managing their own healthcare, informal carers (including unpaid carers) are fully supported (e.g. by preventing overburdening and economic stress) and the specific needs of groups in a vulnerable situation are recognised and addressed. This includes improved access to healthcare services, financial risk protection, timely access to quality healthcare services including essential medicines and vaccines.
• Health policy and systems adopt a holistic approach -considering individuals, communities, organisations, society- in evaluating health outcomes, public health interventions, healthcare organisation, and decision-making. They benefit from evidence based, scalable and transferable healthcare solutions (e.g. between countries and healthcare settings) including for addressing health inequalities and ensuring environmental and climate sustainability in the health sector.

The actions resulting from the topics under this destination will also create strong opportunities for synergies with actions stemming from the EU4Health programme, in particular contributing to the goals under the general objective “protecting people in the Union from serious cross-border threats to health” and specific objective 4 “to strengthen health systems, their resilience and resource efficiency”.

Legal entities established in China are not eligible to participate in both Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) and Innovation Actions (IAs) falling under this destination. For additional information please see “Restrictions on the participation of legal entities established in China” found in the Annex B of the General Annexes of this Work Programme.

The protection of European communication networks has been identified as an important security interest of the Union and its Member States. Entities that are assessed as high-risk suppliers^[15] of mobile network communication equipment (and any entities they own or control) are not eligible to participate as beneficiaries, affiliated entities and associated partners to topics identified as “subject to restrictions for the protection of European communication networks”. Please refer to the Annex B of the General Annexes of this Work Programme for further details.

[1] https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/strategic-plan_en

[2] Communication from the European Commission on the European care strategy, COM(2022) 440, 7.9.2022

[3] Communication from the European Commission on enabling the digital transformation of health and care in the Digital Single Market; empowering citizens and building a healthier society, COM(2018) 233, 25.4.2018

[4] https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies-and-activities/european-pillar-social-rights-building-fairer-and-more-inclusive-european-union_en

[5] Commission Communication on Artificial Intelligence for Europe; COM(2018) 237 final: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/european-approach-artificial-intelligence; https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2018:237:FIN

[6] https://climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/adaptation-climate-change/eu-adaptation-strategy_e

[7] https://health.ec.europa.eu/medicinal-products/pharmaceutical-strategy-europe_en

[8] https://health.ec.europa.eu/ehealth-digital-health-and-care/european-health-data-space-regulation-ehds_en

[9] https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/strategy/strategy-research-and-innovation/jobs-and-economy/towards-strategy-european-life-sciences_en; https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1686

[10] https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en

[11] https://commission.europa.eu/about/commission-2024-2029_en

[12] https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness_en

[13] https://eic.ec.europa.eu

[14] https://commission.europa.eu/funding-tenders/find-funding/eu-funding-programmes/eu4health_en

[15] Entities assessed as “high-risk suppliers”, are currently set out in the second report on Member States’ progress in implementing the EU toolbox on 5G cybersecurity of 2023 (NIS Cooperation Group, Second report on Member States’ progress in implementing the EU Toolbox on 5G Cybersecurity, June 2023) and the related Communication on the implementation of the 5G cybersecurity toolbox of 2023 (Communication from the Commission: Implementation of the 5G cybersecurity Toolbox, Brussels, 15.6.2023 C(2023) 4049 final).

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