‘In the latest funding results for 2018, 16 Irish health researchers received funding of €6,332,401 bringing the total funding for Ireland to €58,843,672 so far in Horizon 2020, 2.25% of the total available budget’.

‘There are still significant funding opportunities available for health researchers in the final two years of Horizon 2020’, she adds, ‘and budgets for those years have increased’.

‘Calls for 2019 are now open in the areas of infectious diseases, impact of the environment on health, digital innovation for health and care in an ageing society and big data and artificial intelligence in cancer treatment  with individual closing dates throughout April 2019’.

Details of calls are available at the Participant Portal  http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/home.html

Draft call topics for 2020 are also available and can be obtained from the Health NCP, Kay Duggan-Walls, e kdugganwalls@hrb.ie at the HRB.

Topics in the Work Programme for 2020 include:

  • healthcare interventions for the management of the elderly multi-morbid patient,
  • interventions for non-communicable diseases,
  • network for harmonised large-scale clinical research studies for infectious diseases,
  • addressing low vaccine uptake,
  • urban health and wellbeing including mental health,
  • impact of micro- and nano-plastics on human health,
  • digital health and care services and the smart hospital of the future.

Hands-on support and advice to researchers submitting proposals to Horizon 2020 is available from the Health NCP.