The Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) is a public-private partnership (PPP) between the European Union and the European life science industries, and these partners sit on our Governing Board. Its main objective is to translate healthcare research and innovation into tangible benefits for patients and society. It is also looking for Europe to become a reference in the fields of interdisciplinary, sustainable and patient-centered health research.

Any organisation established in the EU or a country associated to Horizon Europe is eligible to receive IHI funding. In practice, IHI funding primarily supports the participation in its projects of organisations like universities, research organisations, patient organisations, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and mid-sized companies. Depending on the type of call for proposals, larger companies may also be eligible to receive IHI funding. Details of who can receive funding is spelt out in the call texts.

Contributing to IHI: industry partners and contributing partners

Large companies that are members of the IHI industry partners contribute to the programme, primarily through 'in-kind' contributions (e.g. their researchers' time, laboratories, data, compounds). They can also make cash contributions. IHI contributing partners provide resources to IHI in the same way.

At least 45% of each project's budget has to come from industry partner / contributing partner contributions (in exceptional cases, a lower percentage may be allowed).

Explanation of this specific topic

Projects funded under this topic should address this challenge by developing an open platform for screening individuals with the aim of identifying people at risk of disease. Applicants should clearly identify a disease(s) of unmet public health need, and specify the initial biomarkers to identify people at risk that will be used within the project (e.g. genetic, metabolic, digital and imaging biomarkers, lifestyle/environmental, family inherited disease, and/or combinations of these) and explain their choices with relevant evidence where possible. 

In particular, for the selected disease(s), the project(s) funded under this topic are expected to:

• Set up a comprehensive interdisciplinary collaboration of the clinical research, industrial, public health, and health technologies communities to develop the screening platform and generate the evidence base for general population screening. This platform should be built to operate in an open-source environment allowing interoperability with applications from different providers, and build on clearly identified existing initiatives where relevant, while aiming at facilitating reusability (for example, a modular structure to enable flexibility and customisation to support new developments).
• Clinically validate and assess the utility of the screening platform and biomarkers to identify people at risk by designing and implementing a large-scale general population cohort screening study in several representative European countries.
• Design and clinically validate innovative assay technologies for disease risk identification, including digital technologies with data capture/analysis.
• Deliver digital tools for more effective and efficient management and execution of screening programmes and improved disease prevention. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools should be robust and explainable where relevant.
• Publish the relevant methods, standard operating procedures (SOPs), algorithms, standards and guidelines to allow the platform to be used more broadly and for diagnostics and therapies to be developed.
• Develop a plan/roadmap based on solid evidence to facilitate the regulatory qualification of the biomarkers identified and used within the project, and seek engagement with regulators where relevant (e.g. through the EMA Innovation Task Force, scientific advice).
• Develop and optimise relevant clinical practice guidelines through systematic evidence and outcome review, while addressing factors influencing uptake of these biomarkers in clinical practice.
• Raise awareness of disease prevention and provide training and education to relevant healthcare professionals, patients and family members. These training materials should be made available for use after the project ends.

A key objective is to facilitate changing healthcare practice, so applicants will need to demonstrate that their outputs can be taken up by healthcare systems and take steps to facilitate this.

Applicants are expected to consider allocating appropriate resources to explore synergies with other relevant initiatives and projects.

In case of interest, both as possible coordinator or partner,  please click on "m'interessa" and we will contact you.