European Partnership on Transforming Health and Care Systems 2024

A brief summary of the call is provided below along with additional information on eligibility for applicants requesting funding from HRB. Please refer to the THCS JTC2024 website for all call documents:

Proposals in the scope of this call will be focused on secondary, tertiary, and quaternary prevention. Actions on primary prevention are out of scope.

“Secondary prevention is associated with early detection of a disease which may result in improved chances for positive health outcomes.”

The projects in this area will aim to build up, implement and upscale organisational models, supported by the integration of existing IT and digital technologies, and novel data sources, in order to anticipate the identification of individuals in the earliest phase of disease more effectively than existing health and care systems. This includes taking advantage of interventions that predict, reduce, delay, and avoid the development of diseases.

“Tertiary prevention is associated with services that promote better quality of life for those living with disease.”
The projects within this area will aim to build up, implement and upscale organisational models, supported by the integration of IT and digital-based solutions with other existing solutions, to optimise patient management both in hospital and home settings. The purpose is to reduce worsening of disease, improve the efficacy of therapies to manage the prevention of complications and further damage, and at the same time reduce the burden on the health care systems and improve access to services.

“Quaternary prevention is related to avoiding over-medicalisation of patients, protecting them from unnecessary interventions and suggesting ethical alternatives.”

The projects within this area will aim to build up, implement and upscale organisational models, supported by the integration of existing IT and digital-based technologies, with solutions that tailor therapies for those patients who require personalised treatment.

Proposals will be rejected if they:

• Predominantly concern development of new technological solutions, without a focus on integration of the solutions, organisational models or implementation in the health and care systems.
• Have a predominantly clinical, pre-clinical/bio-medical component or
• Are purely epidemiological studies mapping the extent of and causal factors behind illnesses, without a focus on solutions, models or implementation in the health and care systems.
• Solely concern social/welfare services and do not address issues in the health and care services.
• Do not take into consideration an ecosystem-wide approach and/or fail to consider end-users’ perspective (see Guidance for Applicants for details).
• Predominantly concern actions on primary prevention.

Call Scope:

Irish Partner(s) are not eligible for HRB funding for:

• Proposals involving basic biomedical research;¹
• Research intended to create human embryos solely for the purposes of research or for the purposes of stem cell procurement, including by means of somatic cell nuclear transfer;
• Applications from individuals applying for, holding, or employed under funding received from the tobacco industry;²
• Applications from individuals applying for, holding, or employed under funding received from the alcohol industry and related actors.³ 

Major changes since the last round 

In recognition of the rising costs of research, the overall budget has been increased.
This scheme is not framed as a training initiative for PhD candidates and, as the maximum duration of projects (three years) is less than the HRB standard for PhD funding (four years), we will be unable to support PhD student stipends or fees for this call. Where candidates for a Master’s degree are proposed to work on projects, Lead Applicants must show evidence of careful consideration ensuring a good training experience for the Master’s candidate.

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¹ HRB defines basic biomedical research as very early stage, fundamental research. HRB permits pre-clinical research within this call on the understanding that pre-clinical studies represent an important stage of research that occurs before testing in humans to find out if a drug, treatment or procedure is likely to be useful. Work with animal models and human samples is eligible under this call.

² Any company, entity, or organisation involved in the development, production, promotion, marketing, or sale of tobacco in any country of the world. The term also includes any companies that are a subsidiary or a holding company or affiliate of the above. This also includes e-cigarette companies and non-tobacco related companies which are fully or partially owned by the tobacco industry. Please refer to the HRB Position Statement on Researchers funded by the Tobacco and Alcohol industry.

³ Including social aspects/public relations organisations (SAPROs) funded by alcohol companies or trade associations in which such companies are members. Please refer to the HRB Position Statement on Researchers funded by the Tobacco and Alcohol industry.

Projects are expected to start end of 2024/beginning of 2025. Awards will have a duration of 36 months.

Please note: Project partners will be funded by their relevant national/regional funding organisations. Eligible costs and funding rules may vary between the respective funding organisations (see the call text). Note that the budget categories will vary between the joint application and the budget submitted to HRB – please ensure a general alignment overall and that the total budgets (including direct and overhead subtotals) match.

For applicants based in Ireland, the HRB will provide funding for projects up to a maximum of €330,000 direct costs per award. Additional funding of up to €75,000 direct costs will be made available for coordination activities (cannot be used to cover equipment and consumables) bringing the total to €405,000 direct costs for coordinators. The maximum total award, including overhead contribution, will be €430,000, for a partner and €530,000 for applicants who take on the role of coordinator.

The HRB plans to commit up to €530,000 to the THCS JTC2024 awards. Quality permitting a minimum of one award will be funded.

The award will offer research related costs for:

a) Personnel

• Salary-related costs in line with the most recent IUA (or other most applicable) scale for funded personnel .
• Salary related costs for Lead Applicants in contract positions up to a maximum of 0.5 FTE protected time for research funded by HRB.
• Stipends and fees (Master’s students only)

b) Direct running costs (including travel, mobility costs, patient-related costs, and costs to support interventional studies)

c) PPI costs

d) Small equipment costs (not to exceed €10k)

e) FAIR data management costs: Data stewardship costs (e.g. service/fees from data steward, access to secondary data, costs of making data FAIR, etc). Please refer to Appendix I for additional guidance on FAIR data management costings.

f) Dissemination and knowledge exchange activities (including dissemination-related travel)

g) Overheads contribution

Funding available is inclusive of overheads and pension contributions.

Please refer to “HRB JTC Budget Guidance” attached for further details. 

Note: The THCS award will not fund PhD stipends and fees, nor the salary and related costs of tenured academic staff within research institutions (including buy-out from teaching time etc.). The latter does not apply to contract researchers, as outlined above.

The budget requested and the award duration must reflect the scale and nature of the proposed research.

Funded Personnel

Alignment between personnel requested and the proposed project should be demonstrated. Roles and responsibilities of funded personnel must be differentiated and clear.

This scheme is not framed as a training initiative for higher degree candidates. It will not cover costs for PhD students. Where candidates for a Master’s degree are proposed to work on projects, Lead Applicants must carefully consider:

• The complexity, scale, objectives, and dependencies of the project.
• The suitability of such project in terms of delivering a clearly identifiable original research project or the potential difficulties in clustering various pieces of work packages for a Master’s thesis. The skills, expertise and experience level required to carry it out.
• Any requirements and/or restriction relating to the Master’s candidate’s registration with the Host Institution, and this should be accounted for when determining the start date of the award.

This call is not open for Host Institutions in Northern Ireland. 

Only transnational projects will be funded and consortia must meet specific criteria as detailed in the call text. There will be a partner search tool available for this call from mid-January. Please refer to the THCS JTC2024 website for all details.

Lead Applicants requesting HRB funding:

Note that HRB use the term ‘Lead Applicant’ to refer to a coordinator or partner applying for HRB funding.

The following will apply to partners seeking HRB funding – i.e., Lead Applicants. If there is more than one Irish partner/coordinator and they are based in different Host Institutions, they must apply as separate partners.

Where more than one Irish coordinator/partner exists, each must meet the Lead Applicant eligibility criteria. However, the HRB will only contract with the Host Institution of one Lead Applicant (this must be the coordinator if an Irish coordinator exists).¹ This Lead Applicant will serve as the primary point of contact for the HRB during the review process and on the award, if successful. They will be responsible for the scientific and technical direction of the Irish research programme. They have primary fiduciary responsibility and accountability for carrying out the research within the funding limits awarded and in accordance with the terms and conditions of the HRB. Where applicable, they must distribute the funds appropriately to the second Irish partner via collaboration and/or consortium agreements.

Each applicant can submit only one application as coordinator or up to two proposals as partner.

Lead Applicants must:

Hold a post (permanent or a contract that covers the duration of the award) in a HRB recognised Host Institution in the Republic of Ireland (the “Host Institution”) as an independent investigator. For clinicians, an adjunct position in a HRB recognised Host Institution is acceptable (an accompanying letter of support is required in these cases, as well as in the case of contract positions – see Section 6 below).

OR

Be an individual who will be recognised by the Host Institution upon receipt of an award as an independent investigator who will have a dedicated office and research space for the duration of award, for which they will be fully responsible. The Lead Applicant does not necessarily need to be employed by the Host Institution at the time of the application submission (an accompanying letter of support is required in these cases – see Section 6 below).

They must show evidence of achievement as an independent researcher in their chosen research field by:

1. Demonstrating a record of research output, with at least three publications of original research in peer reviewed journals. Where appropriate, they should also provide evidence of other outputs (e.g., published book chapters, reports to government, research data and datasets, research materials, databases, audio/video products, national and/or international reports, patents, models and protocols, software production, evidence of influence on health policy and practice, outreach and/or knowledge exchange activities, media coverage or other relevant activities) and/or any other relevant outputs that have resulted in a significant impact in their field.
2. Demonstrating record of independence by showing that they have secured at least one peer-reviewed research grant for a research project/s, as either the Lead Applicant or a Co-Applicant. Funding received for travel to seminars/conferences and/or small personal bursaries will not be considered in this regard.
3. Show evidence that they possess the capability and authority to manage and supervise the research team.

Host Institution:

The Host Institution for the award is normally that of the Lead Applicant based in Ireland but it may be another organisation/institution designated by the research team, where it is clearly justified. In order to be eligible to apply for funding, an Institution must be an approved HRB Host Institution no later than two calendar months before the closing date of a call. A list of currently approved HRB Host Institutions can be found on the HRB website.

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¹ For administrative purposes, the second partner will be recorded in HRB systems as a Co-Applicant.

There will be a one-stage application procedure for joint applications with one Intent to apply (ItA) and one full-proposal document. Only consortia who have submitted an ItA will be permitted to submit a full proposal. 

One joint proposal document (in English) shall be prepared by the partners and must be submitted by the Coordinator in electronic format via the THCS Partnership Online Submission System no later than:

•  Intent to Apply: 13:00 GMT on 16 April 2024
•  Full proposal: 13:00 GMT on 14 May 2024.

No other means of submission will be accepted.

For further details, please refer to the respective submission forms available through the THCS 2024 website. If you need additional information, please contact the Joint Call Secretariat (JCS). Please refer also to HRB Grant Policies.

Lead Applicants based in Ireland will be required to provide additional information to the HRB:

1. New applicants to HRB for Joint Transnational Calls must demonstrate that they meet the eligibility criteria by completing the Lead Applicant eligibility form by the submission deadline. 
2. Applicants must submit a justification for their requested budget, and clarification on deliverables assigned to the partner from Ireland. Templates are provided on this page.
3. Host Institution Letters of Support must be provided for (1) all named Lead Applicants in a contract position and (2) Adjunct Professors not directly employed by the HI. These must be emailed to eujointprogrammes(at)hrb.ie or attached with your Lead Applicant eligibility form before the pre-proposal submission deadline. The formal letter on headed notepaper, dated and signed by the Head of School/Research Centre/Hospital must include the following information:

• Case (1): [Host Institution – insert name] which is the host institution of [applicant – insert name] confirms that [applicant – insert name]: (i) holds an employment contract which extends until [insert date] or will be recognized by the host institution upon receipt of the HRB [scheme] award as a contract researcher; (ii) has an independent office and research space/facilities for which they are fully responsible for at least the duration of the award, and (iii) has the capability and authority to mentor and supervise the research team.
• Case (2): [Host Institution – insert name] confirms that [applicant – insert name] has the authority and resources allocated to hold and manage a grant under their Adjunct status for at least the duration of the award.

THCS Partnership Online Submission System

For general information, please contact the Joint Call Secretariat (JCS):

Zorgonderzoek Nederland ZonMw (Netherlands)
Email: thcs(at)zonmw.nl

For country-specific information for Irish Partners, please contact the HRB, Ireland:

Dr Siobhán Hackett

Email: eujointprogrammes(at)hrb.ie