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EARLOpen Calls
Call for proposals to pilot and implement cancer screening programmes for gastric cancer
Objective: This action will contribute to the implementation of gastric cancer screening programmes, in a stepwise approach to ensure the gradual and appropriate planning, piloting, and roll-out of the screening programmes within national priorities, as called for in the 2022 Council Recommendation on cancer screening. The use of AI in ongoing (pilot) programmes shall be assessed, and the potential use of AI, where feasible, further be explored. Potential synergies with the project stemming out of the “Call for proposals on advancing the adoption of artificial intelligence in health” (DI-g-24-76 of 2024 EU4Health work programme) shall be explored.
Scope:
The action may include the following activities:
• facilitating implementation research via new pilots and programme rollout initiatives through monitoring and assessment of on-going implementation studies; defining needs for and planning of new implementation studies based on gap analyses, building on deliverables of the TOGAS project; supporting, coordinating and running implementation studies within Member States; linking regional/national implementations studies within Member States to reduce duplication and human/financial resources as well as to increase study impact; regular quality assessment and improvement of implementation research.
• collection and assessment of benefits/harms data and other data on outcomes, quality assurance and cost-effectiveness relating to gastric cancer screening programmes from the national level based on the established methods, infrastructure, and networks within the previous EU4Health Programme funded projects;
• linking relevant experts and representatives from European medical societies and patient organisations to ensure broad outreach to corresponding national partner societies and patient organisations;
• effective dissemination as well as bidirectional knowledge exchange with all Member States relating to gastric cancer screening;
• close collaboration with related projects, such as those covering lung and prostate cancer screening, and the Joint Action Implementation of cancer screening programmes (‘EUCanScreen’) from the 2023 EU4Health work programme action CR-g-23-38; and
• close collaboration with the Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and the alignment with the outputs of the planned Commission Initiative on Gastric Cancer; and • exploration of the potential of AI in gastric cancer screening.
Call for proposals to pilot and implement cancer screening programmes for lung cancer
Objective:
This action will contribute to the implementation of lung cancer screening programmes, to enhance early detection and programme efficiency. The gradual and appropriate planning, piloting, and roll-out of the screening programs will align with national priorities and the latest scientific advancements as called for in the 2022 Council Recommendation on cancer screening. The use of AI in ongoing (pilot) programmes shall be assessed, and the potential use of AI, where feasible, further be explored. Synergies with actions implementing the European Cancer Imaging Initiative, in particular the Cancer Image Europe platform, shall be explored. Potential synergies with the project stemming out of the “Call for proposals on advancing the adoption of artificial intelligence in health” (DI-g-24-76 from the 2024 EU4Health Work Programme) shall be explored.
Scope:
The action may include the following activities:
- facilitating implementation research via new pilots and rollout initiatives through:
- monitoring and assessment of on-going implementation studies;
- defining needs for and planning of new implementation studies based on gap analyses, building on deliverables of the SOLACE project;
- supporting, coordinating and running implementation studies within Member States;
- linking regional/national implementations studies within Member States to reduce duplication and human/financial resources as well as to increase study impact;
- regular quality assessment and improvement of implementation research.
- facilitating aggregation and analysis of the cancer imaging datasets, allowing crossborder multi-centric cooperation on AI studies, including research and development of replicable AI algorithms for lung cancer screening and for strengthening the evidence base for AI uptake in lung cancer screening programmes;
- collection and assessment of benefits/harms data and other data on outcomes, quality assurance and cost-effectiveness relating to lung cancer screening programmes from the national level based on the established methods, infrastructure and networks within the previous EU4Health Programme funded projects;
- linking relevant experts and representatives from European medical societies and patient organisations to ensure broad outreach to corresponding national partner societies and patient organisations;
- effective dissemination as well as bidirectional knowledge exchange with all Member States and relevant candidate countries relating to lung cancer screening;
- close collaboration with related projects, such as those covering prostate and gastric cancer screening, and the Joint Action Implementation of cancer screening programmes (‘EUCanScreen’) from the 2023 EU4Health work programme action CR-g-23-38;
- close collaboration and alignment with the Commission’s Joint Research Centre and the outputs of the planned Commission Initiative on Lung Cancer;
- exploration of the potential of artificial intelligence (‘AI’) in lung cancer screening in synergy with the activities under the European Cancer Imaging Initiative.
Call for proposals to pilot and implement cancer screening programmes for prostate cancer
Objective:
This action will contribute to the implementation of prostate cancer screening programmes, in a stepwise approach to ensure the gradual and appropriate planning, piloting, and roll-out of the screening programmes within national priorities, as called for in the 2022 Council Recommendation and upcoming European Guidelines on cancer screening. The use of AI in ongoing (pilot) programmes shall be assessed, and the potential use of AI, where feasible, further be explored. Synergies with actions implementing the European Cancer Imaging Initiative, in particular the Cancer Image Europe platform, shall be explored. Potential synergies with the project stemming out of the “Call for proposals on advancing the adoption of artificial intelligence in health” (DI-g-24-76 from 2024 EU4Health work programme) shall be explored.
Scope:
The action may include the following activities:
- facilitating implementation research via new pilots and programme rollout initiatives through:
- monitoring and assessment of on-going implementation studies;
- defining needs for and planning of new implementation studies based on gap analyses, building on deliverables of the PRAISE-U project;
- supporting, coordinating and running implementation studies within Member States;
- linking regional/national implementations studies within Member States to reduce duplication and human/financial resources as well as to increase study impact;
- regular quality assessment and improvement of implementation research.
- facilitating aggregation and analysis of the prostate cancer imaging datasets, allowing cross-border multi-centric cooperation on AI studies, including research and development of replicable AI algorithms for prostate cancer screening and for strengthening the evidence base for AI uptake in prostate cancer screening programmes
- collection and assessment of benefits/harms data and other data on outcomes, quality assurance and cost-effectiveness relating to prostate cancer screening programmes from the national level based on the established methods, infrastructure and networks within the previous EU4Health Programme funded projects.
- linking relevant experts and representatives from European medical societies and patient organisations to ensure broad outreach to corresponding national partner societies and patient organisations.
- effective dissemination as well as bidirectional knowledge exchange with all Member States and relevant candidate countries relating to prostate cancer screening.
- close collaboration with related projects, such as those covering lung and gastric cancer screening, and the Joint Action Implementation of cancer screening programmes (‘EUCanScreen’) from the 2023 EU4Health work programme action CR-g-23-38.
- close collaboration with the Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and the planned Commission Initiative on Prostate Cancer.
- exploration of the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in prostate cancer screening to detect prostate cancer at an earlier stage and reduce disparities in access to diagnosis among high-risk populations in synergy with the activities under the European Cancer Imaging Initiative.
A European flagship initiative leveraging AI and health data for cardiovascular health and related non-communicable diseases: Advancing Risk Prediction, Prevention, Treatments, Personalised Care and Rehabilitation
Objective:
Objective:
The initiative is structured around two complementary and mutually reinforcing objectives. Together, they aim to lay the foundations for a European model of AI-enabled cardiovascular and comorbid chronic disease care, grounded in high-quality health data and real-world validated solutions.
Objective 1 — Leveraging Health Data for AI Applications in Cardiovascular and Related Chronic Diseases The first objective is to structure, federate, and enable access to high-quality health data across the Union to support the development, training, validation, and deployment of AI tools focused on cardiovascular diseases and related non-communicable diseases (such as diabetes and obesity). This will align with and prepare for the future application the EHDS, which provides the regulatory and technical framework to enable the secure, privacy preserving, and interoperable secondary use of health data across Member States.
Objective 2 — Deploying AI Solutions for Risk Prediction, Prevention, Treatments, and Personalised Care The second objective is to identify, validate, and scale up mature AI applications capable of improving the risk prediction, early detection, personalised prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of cardiovascular and related chronic diseases.
Scope:
This initiative aims to leverage AI and health data to accelerate the early detection, prediction, personalised prevention, integrated management and rehabilitation of CVDs and related NCDs, including rare and complex forms.
Call for proposals on lifelong prevention for a healthy life with focus on cardiovascular diseases
Objective: The aim of this action is to contribute to reducing the burden of non-communicable diseases, including cancer, and their risk factors across the lifespan, supporting Member States’ actions.
Scope:
The action targets:
- lifelong prevention of non-communicable diseases, notably cardiovascular diseases and diabetes (targeting all age groups, with a particular focus on children and adolescents, and vulnerable groups);
- active and healthy ageing, empowering older generations;
- reducing the use and exposure to tobacco and related products, with a focus on young people’s access to emerging tobacco and nicotine products;
- reducing harmful alcohol consumption, in particular in young people and vulnerable groups;
- the promotion of healthy diets and physical to improve health;
- reducing the impact on mental wellbeing of social media and excessive screen time with a focus on children and young people.
The activities will include:
- capacity-building for stakeholders to develop and pilot community-level, coordinated and innovative outreach and awareness actions to support the prevention of noncommunicable diseases and relevant risk factors (tobacco, alcohol, nutrition and physical activity, etc);
- activities to improve health literacy targeting vulnerable groups;
- development and piloting of tools and instruments to address the lifelong prevention of non-communicable diseases;
- development and piloting of innovative approaches to reduce the health risks associated with the use of tobacco and alcohol, in particular in vulnerable groups;
- piloting of actions at community level on tackling risk factors for non-communicable diseases, including unhealthy diets and physical inactivity;
- development and piloting of ambitious and innovative public health interventions on tackling risk factors such as tobacco, alcohol, and second-hand exposure to smoke and aerosols from traditional tobacco and emerging products.
Call for proposals to support the development of a medicine pricing, reimbursement and access tracker through the EURIPID databas
Objective:
The objectives are to:
a) measure and increase understanding of patient access to medicines in the Union;
b) increase the quality of the database, in terms of timely/correct data delivery;
c) expand the scope of the EURIPID members (to all the Member States) and data;
d) leverage usefulness of the data beyond external reference pricing purposes.
Scope:
The scope of this action is to develop through the EURIPID database:
a) a “pricing and reimbursement (‘P&R’) tracker”, including national information on early access schemes; P&R applications, status, decision; and P&R criteria or conditions (general and product-specific);
b) access dashboards, building on OECD indicators, including on availability (e.g., coverage status, time-to-reimbursement), affordability (e.g., cost of treatment), accessibility (e.g., consumption/uptake);
c) an annual trend analysis report of access to medicines in the Union;
d) solutions that can facilitate data sharing with EURIPID, such as automatization using application programming interface and machine-machine interaction with each Member State;
e) reinforced interoperability of EURIPID with other existing databases (e.g. the European Shortages Medicine Platform, Substance, Product, Organisation and Referential master data, Product Management Service, etc.) and integrating data assets in the European Health Data Space.
Call for proposals for a programme on orphan medical devices, in particular targeting paediatric patients
Objective:
This action aims to support innovation in the field of medical devices by supporting non-profit organisations or consortia that provide a platform for academic bodies, scientific societies, developers of devices, in particular SMEs, and NGOs with a specific interest in innovative medical devices to help foster and guide the development of orphan devices, in particular in areas of unmet medical needs and paediatric patients.
Scope:
A wide range of activities can be funded that support, among other things, the development, design, production and distribution or orphan devices, including intellectual property advising, prototyping, engineering, laboratory and animal testing, grant-writing, and clinical investigation design.
The eligible entities should facilitate the development, production, and distribution of orphan devices, in particular for paediatric patients by:
a) mapping unmet medical needs that could be addressed by orphan devices;
b) encouraging innovation and connecting relevant players (e.g., academia, scientific societies, users) with orphan device ideas with potential manufacturers;
c) mentoring and managing orphan device projects through the development process, including product identification, prototype design, device development, and marketing;
d) connecting developers of innovative devices and physicians to existing financing resources;
e) assessing the scientific and medical merit of proposed orphan device projects;
f) gathering and evaluating pre-clinical data to support the safety and/or performance of the orphan device; g) providing assistance and advice as needed on business development, personnel training, prototype development, intellectual property protection and post-marketing needs;
h) advising about regulatory requirements to device developers in support of achieving CE marking for the orphan devices; and
i) supporting the demonstration of conformity with the relevant requirements laid down in Regulation (EU) 2017/745 or Regulation (EU) 2017/746 with a view to allowing the CE marking of the product building on the guidance MDCG 2024-10 including the scientific advice procedure from the expert panels on medical devices
Call for proposals for health data for biotech innovation leveraging the European Health Data Space
Objective:
The general objective of this action is to accelerate the development and deployment of AI and digital solutions in the biotech sector driven by health data, ensuring its secure and responsible use through the EHDS and leveraging AI Factories to augment these efforts.
Objectives:
- Create a multistakeholder platform that brings together the biotech industry, data holders, healthcare providers, patient organisations, regulatory bodies and AI Factories to exchange best practices on data access, AI applications, and innovation acceleration, facilitating collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and innovation in the biotechnology sector.
- Identify and prioritise the most promising digital / AI applications for the biotechnology sector, based on criteria such as potential impact on health outcomes, feasibility, technological maturity, and alignment with sectoral needs. Potentially, while also leveraging AI Factory resources for enhancement and validation, rapid prototyping and testing of AI-driven biotech solutions, enhancing the speed and efficiency of bringing innovations from concept to healthcare implementation.
- Analyse the challenges and barriers to the development and deployment of digital / AI solutions in the biotechnology sector, including data quality and availability, regulatory frameworks, ethical and privacy concerns, intellectual property ownership, technical barriers, and scientific validation, and identify potential solutions or strategies to address these challenges, guiding the effective utilization of the EHDS.
- Develop concrete recommendations to support the coordinated development of the EHDS for digital / AI solutions in the biotechnology sector, including for policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers, with a focus on fostering innovation, improving health outcomes, and enhancing the competitiveness of the Union’s biotechnology sector.
Scope:
- Establish a multistakeholder platform/community of practice: create a platform that brings together biotech industry, research institutions, healthcare providers, patient organisations, and regulatory bodies and AI Factories to facilitate collaboration, knowledge-sharing among stakeholders, and the discussion of challenges in the use of AI in the biotechnology sector.
- Conduct a landscape analysis: map the current state of leveraging health data for AI in the biotech sector and identify the most relevant health datasets for the biotech sector, based on criteria such as potential impact on health outcomes, feasibility, and alignment with sectoral needs. Building on existing projects. Potentially incorporate also the AI Factories in this landscape analysis to also explore further application potential.
- Develop a strategic roadmap: create a roadmap for the development, deployment, and scale-up of effective AI solutions in the biotech sector, including recommendations for policy-makers, industry leaders, and researchers. Promote the adoption of standardized data formats and frameworks that facilitate the role data and research infrastructure relevant to the biotech sector, taking into account AI Factory capabilities and building on existing projects and activities in this area.
- Pilot the roles for health data infrastructures under the EHDS frameworks: This activity involves analysing and piloting the roles, and the potential federation of, specific health data infrastructures (genomic, cancer imaging, and brain) within the EHDS frameworks, as well as access to computing resources, and other related data and support services, to support AI-driven biotech innovations. The analysis shall examine the current state of these infrastructures, identify gaps and limitations, and pilot their integration with the EHDS frameworks to enable seamless data sharing and access. The goal is to demonstrate the value of these infrastructures in supporting AI applications in the biotech sector and provide recommendations for integration of such infrastructures into the EHDS frameworks.
- Develop case studies: create case studies of successful AI applications in the biotech sector, and share them with stakeholders to promote best practices, pathways and knowledge-sharing, these case studies should focus on explainable AI.
- Integrate AI Factory Expertise: Incorporate AI Factory technological advancements in collaboration with the use of the EHDS infrastructure, for simulations and analytics to refine and optimise biotech AI solutions, ensuring alignment with healthcare needs.
- Monitor and evaluate progress: pilot a methodology and tools to monitor and evaluate progress towards the strategic roadmap objectives, to provide insights and adjustments needed for continuous improvement.
Objective: The objective of this action is to support the organisation of not-for-profit, Union-wide highlevel science-policy-society conferences that bring together all interested parties such as citizens, patients, practitioners, scientists, policy makers from local, regional, and Union level. The conferences will cover important health topics that are related to the Union’s health priorities, and thereby contribute to the development and implementation of the European Health Union.
Scope:
These conferences are an opportunity for discussion on how to work better together at Union level on one or more health-related topics and will allow Member States, third countries associated to the EU4Health Programme and relevant stakeholders to exchange information and good practices on relevant topics in the field of public health.
Grants may be awarded to support the organisation of conferences that correspond to the objectives and the priorities of the EU4Health Programme, and which have a Union-wide dimension.