Deadline: 11 June 2020
The European Commission has announced a Second call for an Expression of Interest for innovative and rapid health-related approaches to respond to COVID-19 and to deliver quick results for society for a higher level of preparedness of health systems.
This Call of expression of interest is funded through actions of the “SC1 Health, demographic change and wellbeing” of Horizon2020. This expression of interest invites proposals for R&I activities that aim for a wide scale, rapid (in general within 3-24 months) application of health-based solutions to respond quickly to the COVID-19 pandemic, taking into account the wide variety of approaches how care is delivered across Europe.
Considering the huge impact of the pandemic, the scope of this expression of interest has five focus topics;
- Repurposing of manufacturing for vital medical supplies and equipment.
- Medical technologies, Digital tools and Artificial Intelligence analytics to improve surveillance and care at high Technology Readiness Levels.
- Behavioural, social and economic impacts of the outbreak response.
- Pan-European COVID-19 cohorts.
- Networking of existing EU and international cohorts of relevance to COVID-19.
Proposals should consider the strong involvement of end-users (including civil society organisations) and/or strategic partners during the course of the project. Possible end-users and strategic partners are; local or regional health authorities or other types of care delivery organisations (also in their role as employers), civil society organisations, as well as public and private organisations, such as investors and innovation accelerators.
Proposals will contribute to making healthcare systems and societies more resilient to pandemics in terms of prevention, protection and treatment of the population and COVID-19 patients. Projects could make significant and immediate impacts in improving the quality of life of the most vulnerable and the, well-being and operational capacity of frontline workers. In addition, this expression of interest encourages proposals to come forward that lead to increasing short term production and distribution capacities and proposals that facilitate new effective approaches for multi-level cooperation between, local, regional Member States and EU-levels. Actions must demonstrate how they bring about a faster, more impactful, cost-effective and larger scale implementation of innovative (technological and non-technological) solutions to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gender-related issues are an important crosscutting focus of this expression of interest. All data should be sex- and gender-disaggregated, and indirect effects of the pandemic on gender equality should also be considered. In addition, attention should be paid to critical social factors intersecting with sex/gender, such as age, social origin, ethnicity/migration, and disability.
Therefore, the focus of this expression of interest is not to develop new diagnostics, therapeutics or vaccine compounds or solutions, but rather to complete and deploy readily available solutions.
Scope
Proposals should focus on lessons learnt: they should
- address how to mitigate social and economic impacts of the outbreak response related to health systems;
- identify non-intended consequences of epidemic-control decisions; and
- provide answers to social, including gendered, dynamics of the outbreak and the related public health response. Proposals should analyse the effects and efficiency of these responses (including resilience factors), democratic governance, multi-level cooperation, the critical gaps and the various exit strategies, their underlying methodologies and regional adaptations. Proposals are expected to develop guidelines and best ‘next practices’, and implement interventions to mitigate impacts and boost wellbeing.
In particular, in their proposals the applicants are encouraged to integrate multiple medical, social sciences and humanities disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, sociology, epidemiology, implementation science, journalism & communication, economics and political sciences, as well as gender studies and intersectional research to address the following inter-related dimensions:
- Analyse and compare outbreak responses across Europe and impacts on human behaviour and social dynamics by different regions and countries, taking into account societal and cultural structures, health system preparedness and resilience, population densities, population risk groups, climate, pollution, among other factors. Proposals are encouraged to develop guidance for health behavioural patterns to positively influence adherence to behavioural advice and prevent disinformation about health issues and confinement, isolation and social distancing at societal, community and individual levels. Furthermore, the proposals should study factors contributing to the use of harmful self-medication and in anticipation of possible hesitancy towards vaccines.
- Mental health and health inequalities: The proposals should address the immediate and long-term mental health impact in relation to, for example, confinement and social isolation, time spent indoors, repeated media and technology consumption, and disruption of work/school-life balance. They should also address the potential exacerbation of health inequalities affecting a number of vulnerable groups. These could be frontline healthcare workers (a majority of which are women), who might face ethical challenges, suboptimal working conditions and suffer from traumatic stress. In addition, proposals could focus on mental health and health inequalities impacts for elderly and other age groups, people with pre-existing conditions and comorbidities and those with precarious socio-economic conditions (e.g. migrants, the homeless and/or unemployed).
Expected Impact
- To improve the resilience, wellbeing and mental health of the population, frontline workers and, in particular, of the most vulnerable groups and mitigate health inequalities during and after pandemics.
- To contribute to a better understanding of the impact, effectiveness, the public health preparedness and responses (control) that have been taken at different governance levels in the context of the ongoing epidemic of COVID-19 in terms of; acceptability, adoption, appropriateness, feasibility, fidelity, implementation cost, coverage, sustainability of diagnosis and clinical management of patients and survivors infected by SARS-CoV-2 as well as front line workers and communities.
- To prepare holistic assessments of the social, economic and political impacts of the outbreak and its responses, and to propose and deploy evidence-based policy measures (transferable best practices, methodologies) and other initiatives to improve industry’s and society’s adaptation capacity and resilience as well as supporting the availability of critical technologies and tools (during and after a shutdown) that accelerate and enable a fast recovery of the current healthcare emergency.
- To contribute to a holistic public health preparedness and response in the context of ongoing and future epidemics.
- To provide health authorities with guidance for further public health interventions, and to support implementation of actions to; mitigate or manage consequences of current policies, and to better tailor future pandemic management strategies e.g. on confinement.
- To deliver results within 3 – 36 months to end-users at scale.
Cross-cutting Priorities
- Open Innovation
- Socio-economic science and humanities
- Gender
Eligibility Criteria
- Research & innovation actions (RIA)
- At least three legal entities. Each of the three must be established in a different EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country. All three legal entities must be independent of each other.
- Innovation actions (IA):
- At least three legal entities. Each of the three must be established in a different EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country. All three legal entities must be independent of each other.
- Coordination & support actions (CSA):
- At least one legal entity established in an EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country.
- ERA-NET Cofund actions At least three legal entities:
- Each of the three must be established in a different EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country. All three legal entities must be independent of each other.
- Participants in ERA-NET Cofund actions must be legal entities owning or managing public research and innovation programmes.
- Precommercial procurement (PCP) & Public procurement of Innovative solutions (PPI) actions
- At least three legal entities:Each of the three must be established in a different EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country. All three legl entities must be independent of each other.
- Furthermore, there must be a minimum of two legal entities which are ‘public procurers’ 5 from two different EU Member States or Horizon 2020 associated countries.
- Both legal entities must be independent of each other.
- European Joint Programme (EJP) Cofund actions At least five legal entities:
- Each of the five must be established in a different EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country. All five legal entities must be independent of each other.
- Participants in EJP Cofund actions must be legal entities owning or managing national research and innovation programmes.
- Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA)
- At least one legal entity established in an EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country.
For more information, visit Call for Proposals.