IHI Call 9 in Horizon Europe – IHI’s first open call topic

The IHI initiative and the funding model

The Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) presents a public-private partnership with the aim of boosting translation of Europe’s research efforts into innovations that address the needs of patients and society alike.

In this public-private partnership, 50% of the funding is contributed by Horizon Europe, with the other 50% contributed by the industry partners. The 50% can either come from IHI members (e.g., EFPIA, EuropaBio, COCIR, MedTech Europe and Vaccines Europe) or so-called “contributing partners”, which are typically companies in the life science sector that are not affiliated to an IHI member organisation. The contributions from the private sector can be in-kind or in-cash. When applying for an IHI project, at least 45% of the budget, but ideally 50%, needs to be provided by IHI members or contributing partners to complement the public funding.

Call 9 and its sub-topics

Previously, IHI calls aimed to address a pre-defined public health need, e.g. validation of biomarkers, development of screening platforms and development of diseases such as neurodegenerative or cardiovascular diseases. For the first time, the recently launched IHI call 9 is set to be applicant-driven. Rather than defining the public health need that should be addressed, applicants are invited to submit any collaborative proposal as long as it addresses the objectives of the IHI Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA).

IHI published the full document for Call 9 on 16^th January 2025 (IHI_Call9_CallText.pdf) after early drafts had already been accessible in the latter part of 2024. The call is divided into 5 topics, each addressing one of the specific objectives of the SRIA, each with an assigned budget. The topics are:

*Figures represent the funding contributed by the EC under Horizon Europe. The same amount needs to be raised by in-kind or in-cash contributions.

All topics share the general scope of projects and are looking for proposals that address unmet public health needs and foster the translation of research into innovative solutions. Furthermore, considerations of regulatory strategies, data use, patient empowerment and synergy with existing collaborative projects are a shared requirement. However, the topics differ from each other in the aspects they are focusing on, as indicated by the topic titles in the table above.

Topic 1 aims to better understand health determinants. Funded projects are expected to research novel tools, methods and technologies driving this understanding. These efforts will eventually lead to society and patients benefitting from novel prevention, early intervention and treatment options driven by an improved understanding of the underlying mechanisms as well as enabling health technologies.

Topic 2 focusses on the de-fragmentation of the health R&I landscape. Currently, health data largely remain siloed across countries, institutions and even devices. While various attempts have been made to introduced standards and platforms, a widespread fragmentation remains. In this topic, proposals are expected to work towards the better integration of previous efforts, which in turn will translate into improved innovation pipelines in the future.

Topic 3 targets patient-centric research. The long-term aim of this topic is to empower citizens to manage their own health, improve their ability to make informed decisions, and enhance patient adherence prevention programmes and interventions.

Topic 4 will fund research proposals addressing digitalization and data exchange in the context of healthcare. By implementing advanced analytics, potentially including artificial intelligence solutions, widespread impacts such as increased diagnosis accuracy, shorter development time for treatments and widely available personalized care are expected in the long run.

Topic 5 aims to accelerate and improve the implementation of healthcare innovation through harmonised assessment strategies of the added value of proposed solutions. This will lead to faster market entry, improved decision-making processes in the healthcare system, seamless implementation in healthcare settings and ultimately improved access to the innovations for patient communities.

As you can see, the new open call topic format does not specify any disease areas or aspects of the disease pathway. Thus, any disease, pathway or intervention aspect can be addressed in a proposal, as long as the project meets the objectives of the chosen sub-topic.

Implications of the new call format

All five topics of Call 9 are very broad and leave it open to the consortia to define public health needs, research topics and proposed solutions. This comes with some new considerations. Previously, IHI single-stage calls like Call 9 were rather undersubscribed with only around 5-15 proposals submitted. That number is much lower than the number for other Horizon Europe funded collaborative projects, and the chances for a success were thus substantially higher. Now that the scope of the call topics have been broadened, a much larger number of proposals can be expected. With the restrictions on disease types removed, the calls are of interest to a much larger number of research communities active in the field on health. However, exactly how many proposal will be submitted remains to be determined, and only this first run of an open topic can give definite answers.

The largest deciding factor for the number of submitted proposals will likely be the availability of industry contributions. Since the amount of expected contribution ranges from €5-15 million between the topics, a substantial amount must be raised from private partners by each consortium. However, the amount that companies can offer for such collaborative EU projects is limited. As commitment to a proposal means that the contribution needs to be made in case of funding, companies will be selective when choosing which European consortia to join. Naturally, they will prioritise requests based on their own interests. While larger companies have varied interests and might be able to join more than one consortium, especially smaller entities will likely only be able to be part of one consortium.

Preparing a proposal for Call 9

Taking into account the abovementioned restrictions in terms of available industry funding, anyone interested in Horizon Europe’s IHI Call 9 is strongly advised to start assembling partners as early as possible. There is little doubt that some key players in the health field started preparing when the call was still in its draft phase. The logic is simple: If you ask early, the chances that companies have available resources they would contribute to your collaborative project are good. The later you ask, the higher are the chances that they have already committed their available resources elsewhere.

Without the required industry contribution, submitting a proposal is pointless. If the numbers in the budget table do not add up to more than 45% private contribution, a proposal will be classified as ineligible and simply not evaluated. No-one will even read your groundbreaking research plans if you don’t satisfy the financial requirements.

Documents to submit

We won’t dive into what makes a strong proposal here. Instead, we will point out a few administrative aspects that are different between IHI and other Horizon Europe projects. On their page for call documents (Call documents | IHI Innovative Health Initiative), IHI have published various templates and guidance documents. Both proposal Part A (admin) and Part B (description of action for the proposed project) are as you might be used to from other EU projects. Additionally, IHI requires a few more annex documents to be submitted:

1. Budget and type of participants. In addition to a budget as for other Horizon Europe projects, an extensive Excel spreadsheet needs to be submitted that clearly highlights the amount and type of contributions (in-kind or in-cash) as well as the type of participants (beneficiary requesting funding, IHI Private Member, Contributing Partner or Associated Partner). This is a complex document and should not be left to the last minute. A mistake her could be the deciding factor between eligible and ineligible!
2. Declaration of in-kind contribution commitment, to be filled out by the coordinator, listing all committed contributions.
3. Contributing partner application letters. Any private partner who is not member of IHI must fill out this and send it to the coordinator for submission alongside all other documents.
4. Essential information on clinical studies planned in the proposal, which is a compulsory annex. Even if no clinical studies are proposed, a declaration must be submitted.
5. If any In-kind contributions to additional activities (IKAA) are included, an additional Excel spreadsheet must be completed that summarises description, duration and value of the activity. In brief, IKAA refers to costs for additional activities that are not project tasks and can only be contributed by IHI private members (read the full guidance on IKAA here: IHI_Guidelines_in_kind_contribution_additional_activities.pdf). This is an optional annex.
6. If the proposal raises many serious ethical questions that cannot be fully justified in the ethical self-assessment under Part A, a supporting document should be submitted as annex. This is an optional annex.

Conclusion

IHI Call 9 is the first open IHI call in Horizon Europe and has already garnered a lot of interest from the healthcare industry and research community. While the absence of restriction on disease types or intervention types might be attractive for many scientists, the competition for available industry resources is expected to play a major role in the number of submitted proposals. Early action to assemble a consortium and – once the consortium has been assembled – an excellent research proposal is key to being successful in the bid for a successfully funded European framework project.