Horizon Europe: Cluster 1

Health

Context

The Health Cluster will focus on activities aimed at improving and protecting the health of citizens of all ages by developing innovative solutions to prevent, diagnose, monitor, treat and cure diseases. It will also focus on mitigating health risks, protecting populations and promoting good health, as well as on making public health systems more cost-effective and sustainable. 
Research and innovation actions will address health-related challenges by

  • Advancing knowledge and capabilities
  • Improving our understanding of health and diseases
  • Developing innovative methodological and technological solutions to better manage health and diseases
  • Designing sustainable approaches for the digital transformation and delivery of integrated, person-centred and equitable health and care services with improved accessibility and health outcomes supported by needs-driven innovation and reliable supply chains. 

Destinations and call topics

Call topics will be grouped in the following six “Destinations”.

Please note that the topics listed are from the 2021-22 Cluster 1 Work Programme (via the EC portal).

Research to enable citizens to live longer and in better health; and to reduce health inequalities through improved health promotion and disease prevention, targeting in particular aspects arising out of societal change. 

Expected impacts 

  • Better understanding of specific health and care needs throughout the life course
  • More effective solutions for health promotion and disease prevention
  • Facilitate the development of innovative services, policies, guidelines and digital solutions that are accessible, equitable and effective in preventing disease and promoting health 
  • Availability and accessibility of real-world health data

Research under this destination aims at filling knowledge gaps in the understanding of the environmental, occupational and socio-economic risk factors for health and well-being. These risk factors include pollution, chemicals, noise, radiation, urbanisation, climate and other environmental changes, as well as socio-economic inequalities, and changing working environments. 

Expected impacts 

  • Produce knowledge necessary to identify and assess the risks to and benefits for health
  • Enable health promoting and disease preventive policy actions
  • Support EU’s environment and health policies like the European Green Deal 
  • Include strong collaborations across sectors and with other Horizon Europe clusters dealing with agriculture, food, environment, climate, mobility, urban planning, etc.

This Destination will address two key areas:

  • leading the development of key digital and enabling technologies, sectors and value chains by providing innovative health technologies and improving the ability and preparedness to manage epidemic outbreaks
  • Creating a more resilient, inclusive and democratic European society through contribution of research and innovation to global health security.

 

Expected impacts 

  • New prevention, public health interventions, diagnostics, vaccines, therapies and alternatives to antibiotics
  • Improve existing prevention strategies taking into account sex/gender-related issues
  • Continuation of international partnerships and cooperation with international organisations to combat infectious diseases, to respond to major unmet needs for global health security, and to strengthen patient safety 

This destination aims to use research and innovation to support health care systems in their transformation to ensure fair access to sustainable health care services of high quality for all citizens. Planned activities will support the development of innovative solutions in the various dimensions of health and care systems (e.g. governance, financing, human and physical resources, health service provision, and patient empowerment).

 

Expected impacts

  • Develop innovative solutions for health care systems in all their dimensions including governance, resilience, financing, generation of human and physical resources, health service provision and patient empowerment
  • Provide decision makers with new evidence, methods and tools to successfully implement innovative solutions into their health care systems
  • Improve governance and resilience of health care systems and allocate resources according to people’s needs and preferences

This destination looks at how technology and large-scale data can benefit the health and care sector and promote the health and well-being of citizens.

 

Expected impacts 

  • Manage benefits and risks of new technologies and consider aspects of safety, effectiveness, inter-operability, appropriateness, accessibility, comparative value-added, affordability and sustainability, and issues of ethical, societal, regulatory and legal nature
  • Boost acceptability of new technologies and translate them into health policies, health and care systems, and clinical practice responsibly 
  • Promote engagement of end users with key stakeholders (health care providers, researchers, policy-makers, regulatory bodies, etc.) to help addressing unmet needs of health tools, technologies and digital solutions, and to help designing/developing products and services tailored to specific needs related to sex/gender or other aspects

This destination aims to use research and innovation to integrate various health technologies into the European health and care sector.

 

Expected impacts 

  • Cross-sectorial research and innovation, integrating medical technologies, pharmaceuticals, biotechnologies, digital health and eHealth technologies, to strengthen the single market (Digital Single Market strategy)
  • Support standardisation of policy, drive information from the demand side, and provide evidence and guidelines for stakeholders and regulators to ensure that the take-up of innovations supports sustainability
  • Support studies for health assessment procedures, clinical performance demonstration, quality assurance schemes and standardisation

 

Factsheets and Presentations

 

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