Building public trust and outreach in the life sciences

Topics under this destination are directed towards the Key Strategic Orientations "A more resilient, competitive, inclusive, and democratic Europe” and “The Digital transition” 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: “people of all ages in the EU stay healthy, resilient, and independent even as society changes fast. This will arise from healthier lifestyles and behaviour, healthier diets, healthier environments, improved evidence-informed health policies, and more effective solutions for health and well-being promotion, disease prevention and monitoring, and rehabilitation”.

People´s healthcare needs are different depending on their age, gender, stage of life, health status and socioeconomic background. In 2021, nearly 860,000 premature deaths across the EU^[2] could have been prevented with effective primary prevention and other public health measures. In addition, an estimated 135 million people in Europe live with a disability^[3], highlighting the critical need for healthcare systems that are both accessible and adaptable. This number is expected to rise due to population ageing and the increasing prevalence of chronic conditions resulting from noncommunicable diseases and injuries. It is also important to consider disabilities arising from other causes, such as war-related injuries and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which add to the complexity and diversity of healthcare needs.

Aligning with the Commission's Political Guidelines for 2024-2029^[4], which call for stepping up work on preventive health, this destination aims to strengthen disease prevention and early detection, placing support and empowerment of individuals regarding their own health, well-being and living and working conditions at the core of future public health programmes.

Research and Innovation under this destination should help enhance the dialogue and coordination among stakeholders and policymakers, ensuring integration across different care settings for holistic health promotion and disease prevention. Funded activities should seek to leverage the wealth of data sources, including real-world health data and establish a European interconnected health data ecosystem to develop integrated and personalised health promotion and disease prevention strategies. These activities will benefit from and actively support and enrich emerging data resources such as the European Health Data Space (EHDS)^[5] and European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)^[6], and contribute to the European care strategy^[7] and the digital transformation of health and care in the EU^[8]. Since Horizon Europe’s launch in 2021, this destination has addressed important issues such as obesity prevention, understanding health-to-disease transitions, life course approaches to physical and mental health, healthy ageing, digital health literacy, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for chronic disease risk prediction.

In this Work Programme part, destination “Staying healthy in a rapidly changing society” will focus on: i) addressing disabilities through the life course to support independent living and inclusion, with an emphasis on empowering persons with disabilities and their families. This priority aligns with the EU Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021-2030; and ii) developing behavioural interventions as primary prevention for Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), with an emphasis on promoting healthy habits and sustained behavioural change among youth. This priority aligns with the ‘Healthier together’ EU non-communicable diseases initiative.

To increase the impact of EU investments under Horizon Europe, the Commission encourages collaboration between EU-funded projects to foster synergies through networking, joint workshops, knowledge exchange, best practices, and joint communication activities. Synergies can be explored between projects funded under the same or different topics, Clusters or Pillars of Horizon Europe. This includes collaborations between projects funded under the Health Cluster and the 'Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society' Cluster for complementary actions, such as promoting social inclusion, health equity (including gender equality and support for groups at risk of discrimination), and mental health initiatives in education, work, and daily life (including through culture, the arts and sports).

Expected impacts:

Proposals for topics under this destination should set out a credible pathway to contributing to staying healthy in a rapidly changing society, and more specifically to one or several of the following impacts:

• Citizens, including persons with disabilities and other groups in a vulnerable situation, adopt and maintain healthier lifestyles and behaviours, make healthier choices, and achieve, where applicable, longer healthy, independent, and active lives with a reduced burden of preventable disease throughout the life course.
• Citizens are empowered to effectively manage their physical and mental health and well-being, monitor their health status, and interact with healthcare providers to optimise their well-being throughout life through improved health literacy, increased engagement in and adherence to health promotion strategies.
• Children and young people are aware and empowered to better monitor and manage their physical, social and mental health with a view to lifelong healthy lifestyles.
• Society benefits from reduced economic and health burdens due to preventable illness and premature mortality, with efficiency increased by targeting scarce resources in appropriate, cost-effective ways to areas of high social return, thereby driving improvements in health and well-being for all citizens, and specifically reducing health inequalities.

Health policies and actions for health promotion and disease prevention are knowledge-based, people-centred, personalised and thus targeted and tailored to citizens’ needs, and designed to reduce health inequalities.

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^[9] 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] “Health at a Glance: Europe 2024”, available from https://health.ec.europa.eu/state-health-eu/health-glance-europe_en

[3] https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/fact-sheets/item/disability The WHO European Region comprises 53 countries, covering a vast geographical region from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.

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

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

[6] https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/strategy/strategy-2020-2024/our-digital-future/open-science/european-open-science-cloud-eosc_en

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

[8] 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

[9] 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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