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Call key data
Pre-commercial procurement for environmentally sustainable, climate neutral and circular health and care systems
Funding Program
Horizon Europe - Cluster 1 - Destination 4: Ensuring access to innovative, sustainable and high-quality health care
Call number
HORIZON-HLTH-2024-CARE-14-01
deadlines
Opening
25.04.2024
Deadline
26.11.2024 17:00
Funding rate
100%
Call budget
€ 15,000,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
between € 3,000,000.00 and € 5,000,000.00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
Proposals should target either direct and indirect footprint deriving from the provision and/or delivery of care, circularity, waste production and treatment, footprint from the chain of suppliers in making and delivering products, or services or more efficient use of resources, decreasing the overall sector footprint while addressing the constantly increasing demand for healthcare.
Call objectives
The healthcare sector is responsible for 4-5% of global total carbon emissions contributing significantly to Europe's carbon footprint and to the generation of large amounts of plastics and other waste, including chemical waste through the discharge of pharmaceuticals and diagnostic chemicals as well as disinfectants and antimicrobial resistant pathogens into the wastewater system. Good hygiene and safety are vital in this setting however innovative solutions can help to reduce the environmental impact of the healthcare sector through the efficient use of resources, increasing circularity, and the introduction of “greener” materials, technologies and practices.
Up to now the healthcare sector has not significantly embraced the green transition. However, pressure is increasing as demonstrated by the launch of the first ever Declaration on Climate and Health by the UAE COP28 presidency. The declaration calls for action and joint vision on ensuring better health outcomes, in part through the transformation of health and care systems to become climate-resilient, low-carbon, sustainable, circular and equitable. Such a transformation will contribute in the long term to improving patient care by enhancing both the sustainability and overall efficiency of health and care systems.
Pre-commercial procurement (PCP) actions target consortia of procurers with similar needs that want to procure together the development of innovative solutions for greening the health and care systems. This topic does not provide direct funding to developers, industry or research organisations to perform R&D. They will be able to respond to the call for tenders launched by consortia of procurers funded under this call. Specific guidance on PCP actions and minimum eligibility requirements can be found in General Annexes H of the Horizon Europe work programme.
As every step in health and care delivery has a role in reducing its environmental footprint, the topic can support any of the different dimensions and needs for the greening of the healthcare sector.
Proposals should target either:
- Direct and indirect footprint deriving from the provision and/or delivery of care (excluding infrastructural elements related to building, transport logistics and food footprints).
- Circularity, waste production and treatment.
- Footprint from the chain of suppliers in making and delivering products, or services.
- More efficient use of resources, decreasing the overall sector footprint while addressing the constantly increasing demand for healthcare.
Focus should be on solutions that are specific to the healthcare sector therefore proposals targeting general infrastructure (energy efficiency of buildings such cooling, heating and ventilation, vehicles, construction or refurbishment), energy supply or food and catering services do not fall within scope. Within this topic, it is possible to foresee the transfer and adaptation of solutions and/or interventions from other sectors to health and care systems. It is open both to proposals requiring improvements mainly based on one specific solution/technology field, as well as to proposals requiring end-to-end solutions that need combinations of different types of innovation.
Continuous dialogue between demand and supply side is required for the success of PCPs, therefore the effective involvement of end users (e.g. clinical teams, patients or hospital structures etc) needs to be considered in the proposal. Furthermore, to stimulate dialogue with the supply side, procurers are required to organise an open market consultation before launching the procurement and to promote the call for tenders widely across Europe to potentially interested suppliers.
Involvement of procurement decision makers is needed to ensure that end solution(s) are adopted by health and care systems increasing the societal impact of the related research activities. Therefore, procurers should declare in the proposal their interest to purchase at least one solution resulting from the PCP in case the PCP delivers successful solutions and indicate whether they will (1) procure the solution(s) as part of the PCP or (2) in a separate follow-up procurement after the PCP. In the first case, procurers can implement the project as a fast-track PCP (see general annex H) and foresee the budget to purchase at least one solution during the PCP. In the second case, the procurers must include in the proposal a deliverable that prepares the follow-up procurement to purchase successful solution(s) after the PCP.
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Expected results
This topic aims at supporting activities that are enabling or contributing to one or several expected impacts of destination 4 “Ensuring access to innovative, sustainable and high-quality health care”. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim for delivering results that are directed, tailored towards and contributing, to some of the following expected outcomes:
- Public procurers, possibly in cooperation with private ones, in the area of health and care stimulate the competitive development of market-ready, environmentally sustainable innovative solutions (materials, technologies and systems/practices). These solutions take into consideration the green deal ambitions on zero pollution, climate neutrality and circular economy, while increasing the overall sustainability of the sector.
- Procurers open up opportunities for European health and technology industry actors (including start-ups/SMEs) to bring to the market innovations that are cost-efficient, safe and proven to increase environmental sustainability while improving or at least maintaining health outcomes and access to care for patients.
- Procurers facilitate the commercialisation of environmentally sustainable innovative solutions by their successful suppliers through providing them with first customer references for the validation and first pilot deployment.
- Policymakers, health care providers and professionals, patients and carers – each in their respective areas – exchange and adopt good practices and the best solutions and technologies that the market can deliver to reduce carbon emissions and minimise waste and pollution stemming from health and care provision, in line with the Green Deal ambitions.
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Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
Moldova (Moldova), Albania (Shqipëria), Armenia (Հայաստան), Azerbaijan (Azərbaycan), Belarus (Беларусь), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna i Hercegovina / Босна и Херцеговина), Faeroes (Føroyar / Færøerne), Georgia (საქართველო), Iceland (Ísland), Israel (ישראל / إِسْرَائِيل), Kosovo (Kosova/Kosovë / Косово), Montenegro (Црна Гора), Morocco (المغرب), New Zealand (Aotearoa), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Norway (Norge), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Tunisia (تونس /Tūnis), Türkiye, Ukraine (Україна), United Kingdom
eligible entities
Education and training institution, International organization, Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Other, Private institution, incl. private company (private for profit), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs), Research Institution incl. University, Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)
Mandatory partnership
Yes
Project Partnership
Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call conditions , legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes:
- at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State;and
- at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.
The JRC, international European research organisations and legal entities created under EU law are deemed to be established in a Member State other than those in which the other legal entities participating in the action are established.
Applications for ‘Training and mobility’actions and for ‘Programme co-fund’ actions may be submitted by one or more legal entities, provided that one of those legal entities is established in a Member State or an Associated Country.
Applications for ‘Coordination and support’ actions may be submitted by one or more legal entities, which may be established in a Member State, Associated Country or, in exceptional cases and if provided for in the specific call conditions, in another third country.
Applications for ‘Pre-commercial procurement’ actions and ‘Public procurement of innovative solutions’ actions must include as beneficiaries a ‘buyers’ group’. This group must consist of a minimum of two independent legal entities that are public procurers, each established in a different Member State or Associated Country and with at least one of them established in a Member State.
Eligible non-EU countries:
- countries associated to Horizon Europe
Please see the List of Participating Countries in Horizon Europe for an up-to-date list of countries with which the association agreements have started to produce legal effects (either through provisional application or their entry into force).
- low-and middle-income countries
Legal entities which are established in countries not listed above will be eligible for funding if provided for in the specific call conditions, or if their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the granting authority.
other eligibility criteria
The specific conditions for actions with PCP/PPI procurements in section H of the General Annexes apply to grants funded under this topic.
In recognition of the opening of the US National Institutes of Health’s programmes to European researchers, any legal entity established in the United States of America is eligible to receive Union funding.
The thresholds for each criterion will be 4 (Excellence), 4 (Impact) and 3 (Implementation). The cumulative threshold will be 12.
The specific conditions are described in General Annex H. PCP/PPI procurement costs are eligible.
Additional information
Topics
Relevance for EU Macro-Region
EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region
UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)
Additional Information
All proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funders & Tenders Portal electronic submission system (accessible via the topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are NOT possible.
Proposals must be complete and contain all parts and mandatory annexes and supporting documents, e.g. plan for the exploitation and dissemination of the results including communication activities, etc.
The application form will have two parts:
- Part A (to be filled in directly online) contains administrative information about the applicant organisations (future coordinator and beneficiaries and affiliated entities), the summarised budget for the proposal and call-specific questions;
- Part B (to be downloaded from the Portal submission system, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded as a PDF in the system) contains the technical description of the project.
Annexes and supporting documents will be directly available in the submission system and must be uploaded as PDF files (or other formats allowed by the system).
The limit for a full application (Part B) is 45 pages.
Call documents
Horizon Cluster 1 2024-2024 WPHorizon Cluster 1 2024-2024 WP(1908kB)
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