Introduction- EIT Health is calling for activities for our portfolio in 2022 and beyond! The projects must be aligned with one or more EIT Health Strategic Goals and one or more Focus Areas:

• Strategic Goals: 1. Promoting better health of citizens; 2. Strengthening healthcare systems in Europe, 3. Contributing to a sustainable health economy in Europe.
• Focus Areas: 1. Towards Health Continuum Care Pathways; 2. Bringing Care Home; 3. Creating the Enabling Environment for Healthcare Transformation; 4. From the Workplace to the Health Place; 5. Harnessing the Power of Real‐World Data; 6. Fostering Healthy Lives by Introducing Behavioral Change.

Activities are expected to contribute to the achievement of widespread, demonstrable socio-economic improvements to society. For this reason, special consideration should be given to:

• Involvement of citizens and patients in the co-creation of activities, and outreach to citizens and patients with information and knowledge generated by or about activities.
• Outcomes that matter most to citizens and patients, aiming beyond the clinical end points, to account for patients' symptom burden, the functional impact of a treatment and health-related quality of life.
• Compliance with ethical, legal and social principles, such as the diversity of participants, consideration of gender differences in research & innovation and the need for accessibility of digital and physical spaces for people with disabilities.

Important considerations on Co-Funding: All projects are encouraged to contribute as much co-funding as is feasible. In the Business Plan 2022, EIT Health will have to reach a minimum co-funding rate of 20%, corresponding to a maximum reimbursement rate of 80%. - This requirement means that 20% of costs must be covered by the Partnership and the EIT Health organisation (HQ and regional Innovation Hubs/InnoStars) and 80% of costs will be covered by EIT. For the Innovation portfolio (meaning all innovation activities together) the co-funding rate is set to 30% (= 70% reimbursement rate). 

Call Objectives:  EIT Health's Business Creation activities seek to support the best and brightest health industry entrepreneurs and provide them with the skills and services they need to get their ideas off the ground and into the market. Most of the continuation activity portfolio forms part of an exclusive start-up track that provides individualised and continuous support from regional key account managers.

All proposals should aim to create impact within the following relevant areas of need for entrepreneurs, start-ups and SMEs:

• Access to knowledge: We provide hands-on training in relevant healthcare business topics through the pop-up incubator series, as well as dedicated mentoring through the Mentoring and Coaching Network. Furthermore, we call for six Bootcamp activities that train about 60 entrepreneurs to create robust business plans based on their business ideas, and to validate product-solution/product-market fit.
• Access to markets: We enable start-ups to explore and enter new markets within and beyond Europe. Through the Bridgehead programme, start-ups have the opportunity to visit one or more top-notch accelerators, incubators and clusters from the EIT Health European network. They can speed up their access to foreign markets by getting a first-hand feel for the local regulatory framework and business context.
• Access to stakeholders: Start-ups/SMEs and partners can launch collaborations through activities such as the Digital Sandbox, which facilitates access to biobanks and quality registers in Europe. The EIT Health Catapult aims to support 42 start-ups in the domains of Biotech, MedTech and Digital Health. Participating start-ups are supported by high-quality experts, health industry leaders and international investors through intensive and multi-channel involvement of the whole EIT Health community. The EIT Health Alumni Network is crucial to connecting participants of all types of activities in EIT Health and keeping our network engaged.
• Access to investors and funding: The finance instruments facilitate joint investments with different stakeholders, such as citizens through the Crowdfunding platform, industry and business angels through the Investor network and Gold Track programme, and even the European Investment Fund, through the Venture Center of Excellence. Furthermore, Key Account Managers at the regional Innovation Hubs / InnoStars will actively link start-ups to EIT Health partners, that might be suitable collaboration partners (e.g. Start-up-driven proposals).

Call Options: We encourage partners to apply for the Bootcamp Call or a continuation activity:

-Continuation Call: Any Business Creation activity that is willing to continue its work in 2022 will have to apply and undergo a full evaluation procedure. This requirement ensures high quality standards and continuous improvements from year to year. In view of the current strategic developments, an individualised start-up track will be introduced. Most continuation activities will be grouped as part of that track and follow an aligned framework.

- Bootcamp Call (new and continuation): EIT Health Bootcamps provide an intensive incubation programme for European teams who have a business idea that is in the research and development phase. Applicants may include degree/graduate students/postdocs, and budding entrepreneurs who have the ambition to run their own business, and to explore the opportunities of their health business idea in a European context. The Bootcamps help teams to design a successful business model, validate their product-market and product-solution fit, and discover (inter)national market potential, competition, USP and target customers. All Bootcamps will be complimented by the EIT Health Bootcamp Tour, an event that brings together all Bootcamp participants after the end of their individual programmes.

Duration: One year

Budget

- Bootcamp activities: Up to €150,000 (As opposed to past years editions, potential subgrants for travel and accommodation of teams have to be included in that budget.)

- Continuation Activities: Depends on individual activity (range €100,000 €3 million).

Eligibilty

• Proposals must include only Core and/or Associate Partners who have paid their membership fees for the year 2021.
• Proposals must involve partners from a minimum of two regional Innovation Hubs (formerly known as Co-Location Centres) /InnoStars, reflecting a pan-European character (involving at least two independent entities from two different eligible countries).
• Proposals must be led by either an EIT Health Core Partner, Associate Partner or a Linked Third Party.

Bootcamp: We anticipate that lead partners are likely incubators, innovation clusters, universities and/or industry partners with experience in designing programmes to support early stage start-ups. All Bootcamp consortia partners must have a proven track record in supporting health start-ups, and all hosts must be able to provide temporary office space, teaching facilities, etc. for Bootcamp teams. We expect that healthcare institutes, business partners - such as insurance companies, innovation networks and government organisations - are likely to be part of the proposal to ensure access to the network

Continuation activities: Unless a different arrangement is agreed upon within the consortium, the activity leader from previous years should hand in the continuation proposal. Usually the partner consortium remains, but modifications as a result of previous experience are welcome. The consortium is encouraged to include new partners if those partners can contribute significantly to existing or new work packages. Matchmaking events should be used to identify potential new partners.

Deadlines

The submission of each proposal will follow a two-step-approach:

• Submission of an Expression of Interest (EOI): activity leaders must submit an EOI on the Plaza submission system by 13 January 2021, 16:00 CET. Activity Leaders will be informed no later than 22 January 2021 to recommend whether a complete proposal should be submitted or in some cases to group EOI's addressing similar topics to create a complete proposal.
• Submission of Complete Proposal: activity leaders submit a complete proposal on the Plaza submission system using the same ID number from their EOI by 24 March 2021, 16:00 CET.

Evaluation

Remote Evaluations: Each eligible proposal is evaluated by external evaluators based on the criteria described in the relevant sections - Innovation, Education or Business Creation, between 1-20 April 2021. A maximum of 100 points will be awarded by each evaluator during the remote evaluation. The final remote evaluation score will be the average of all remote evaluators' scores. The results of the remote evaluations and invitations for hearings will be issued to the activity leaders on 3 May 2021.

Hearings: The hearings are conducted by an Evaluation Panel. A maximum of 100 points will be awarded from the hearings by each evaluator. The final hearing score will be the average of all hearing evaluator scores.

A maximum of 100 points will be awarded from the hearings by each evaluator. The final hearing score will be the average of all hearing evaluator scores.

In case of interest, please contact lnorton@fsjd.org