Cancer research: Horizon Europe Health Work Programme update  

The first calls for the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2021-2022 for Health opened on the European Commission’s Funding and Tenders Portal on 22nd June with six main destinations:  

1. Staying health in a rapidly changing society.
2. Living and working in a health promoting environment.
3. Tackling diseases to reduce disease burden. 
4. Ensuring access to innovative, sustainable and high-quality health care.
5. Unlocking the full potential of new tools, technologies and digital solutions for a health society. 
6. Maintaining an innovation, sustainable and globally competitive health-related industry.  

Of note, there are a number of opportunities for cancer researchers across these six destinations, including two calls specific to cancer:

1. HORIZON-HLTH-2021-DISEASE-04-01: Improved supportive, palliative, survivorship and end-of-life care of cancer patients (Single Stage Call) 

• Total indicative budget:  €50 million 
• Deadline: 21 September 2021, 5.00pm Brussels time 
• Scope (adapted from work-programme): Focused on the development of effective patient-centered interventions (i.e. randomised control trials or observational studies) to improve quality of life and outcomes of people of all ages affected by cancer who require supportive, palliative, survivorship or end of life care.

Proposals should address all of the following considerations:  

• The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions, including the legal and ethical aspects; 
• Feasibility of integrating the proposed interventions in current regimes and healthcare systems across Europe; 
• Identification and analysis of barriers and factors that could affect health equity of the proposed interventions, including equitable access;  
• Analyse the barriers and opportunities to re-invigorating and enhancing timely social inclusion and active engagement of people affected by cancer and their caregivers; 
• Provide guidelines for patient-centred communication as well as standards for evidence-based communication trainings for caregivers; 
• When relevant provide policy recommendations to address the needs of patients affected by the late and long-term side effects of cancer treatments. 

Input from the social sciences and humanities is considered essential for this call to enhance the societal impact of the research activities. 

See Page 66 of the work programme for more detailed information on this topic 
 

2. HORIZON-HLTH-2021-CARE-05-02: Data-driven decision-support tools for better health care delivery and policy-making with a focus on cancer (Single Stage Call) 

• Total indicative budget: €40 million 
• Deadline: 21 September 2021, 5.00pm Brussels time 
• Scope (adapted from work-programme): This call will contribute to Europeans Beating Cancer Plan activities. It must focus on one or more stages of the cancer continuum i.e. from prevention, early detection, and treatment, right through to improving the quality of life of cancer patients and survivors.   

The proposals should aim at optimising and/or transforming health care delivery decision-making processes, supporting policy-making, and/or empowering citizens and cancer patients. The development of innovations, including tools, processes and services, should be done together with end-users and represent both a support-base and scientific evidence for data-driven innovation. Design thinking and other relevant design methodologies should be considered.  

Applicants should propose activities underpinned by health care data in one or more of the following areas: 

• Development of data-driven, interactive policy and visualisation tools bringing novel insights on populations, systems and services as a whole, to help policymakers make data-driven decisions; 
• Development of data-driven solutions helping health care organisations take evidence-informed decisions on cancer care delivery processes and availability of and access to health care technologies and interventions; 
• Development of data-driven solutions empowering citizens' and cancer patients' interaction with the health care systems; 
• Development of digital toolkits and indicators to improve the reporting and assessment of outputs from end-user involvements, including those of patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs) and patient-reported experience measures (PREMs), and help gauge the actual impact in health care. 

See Page 107 of the work programme for more detailed information on this topic 
 

There are also a number of other calls launched as part of this Work Programme that, while not cancer-specific, also have relevance to cancer: 

• HORIZON-HLTH-2022-STAYHLTH-01-04-two-stage: Trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) tools to predict the risk of chronic non-communicable diseases and/or their progression 
• HORIZON-HLTH-2022-STAYHLTH-01-05-two-stage: Prevention of obesity through the life course 
• HORIZON-HLTH-2021-DISEASE-04-04: Clinical validation of artificial intelligence(AI) solutions for treatment and care 
• HORIZON-HLTH-2022-DISEASE-07-03: Non-communicable diseases risk reduction in adolescence and youth (Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases-GACD) 
• HORIZON-HLTH-2021-CARE-05-01: Enhancing quality of care and patient safety