Pre-announcement: European Partnership on Transforming Health and Care Systems 2026

The Health Research Board (HRB) is participating in the THCS Joint Transnational Call 2026 to support Irish researchers to engage in transnational collaborative research in the field of health and care systems under the call entitled “Access to Care”.

The call is expected to launch 21 November 2025 with a closing date on 2 February 2026 for pre-proposals.

The European Partnership on Transforming Health and Care Systems (THCS) brings the opportunity to coordinate and optimize research and innovation efforts in Europe and its partner countries supporting the much-needed transformation of health and care systems.

Under this umbrella, the fourth Joint Transnational Call for proposals “Access to Care” aims to fund research and innovation projects that contribute to ensuring equitable access to and utilisation of health and care services. Through the funded research and innovation projects, policy and decision makers should gain the knowledge and tools necessary to implement the reallocation of resources as the health and care system undergoes a transition to meet new and ongoing challenges.

Projects funded under this call will build on existing evidence to deliver innovative solutions that enable key stakeholders to reduce inequalities in access to and utilisation of health and care services. Projects will address how to improve access to all levels of health and care through financial models, models for delivering health and care services and setting up of interdisciplinary integrated care programmes.

This call mandates collaborative, transnational research, innovation, and assessment actions. It is compulsory to engage in one or more of the following types of action: applied research, implementation research, piloting, upscaling and/or testing. All projects must demonstrate proof of concept(s), validate concepts, models, or solutions, and showcase demonstrations of solutions in relevant health and care ecosystems. Translation to other settings of already adopted solutions is also within scope of this call.

For further information on the upcoming call, please refer to the THCS preannouncement.