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Call key data
Integrated, multi-scale computational models of patient patho-physiology (‘virtual twins’) for personalised disease management
Call number
HORIZON-HLTH-2023-TOOL-05-03
deadlines
Opening
12.01.2023
Deadline
13.04.2023 17:00
Funding rate
100%
Call budget
€ 50,000,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
between € 8,000,000.00 and € 10,000,000.00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
This topic will contribute to the consolidation of existing virtual twin models and support research to move towards a more integrated human virtual twin, with the aim to accelerate translational research towards cost-effective development of new health technologies. Furthermore, ‘virtual twin’ patient models hold the potential of transforming clinical processes and healthcare with longitudinal monitoring, making personalised medicine, disease prevention and individualised patient management a reality.
Call objectives
Proposals are expected to contribute to the virtual human twin roadmap and ecosystem supported under the Digital Europe Programme, with models aligned and interoperable with those linked to the repository developed thereunder.
The proposals should address all of the following activities:
- Develop multi-scale and multi-organ, dynamic, interoperable, modular computational models, capable of accurately simulating the individual patient patho-physiology, spanning different anatomical scales, from the molecular to cell, tissue, organ and systems level, as necessary. Proposals should be multidisciplinary and focus on groups of communicable and/or non-communicable diseases with commonalities within the same or across different medical domains, including co-morbidities. SME(s) participation is encouraged with the aim to strengthen the scientific and technological basis of SME(s) and valorise their innovations towards citizen and patient benefit.
- Advance the state of the art in multi-scale modelling by employing diverse modelling methodologies, including but not limited to: mechanistic modelling, artificial intelligence, agent-based and network physiology as a means for modelling the healthy state, disease onset, progression, treatment and recovery. Availability of the necessary diverse data types (e.g. data from lab tests, medical imaging, wearables, sensors, medical check-ups, mHealth devices, longitudinal health monitoring etc.) should be demonstrated and the sex/gender dimension should be investigated.
- Integrate standardised spatiotemporal multi-scale models as a basis for developing personalised ‘virtual twin’ models taking account of patient individual characteristics, medical and health status history for advancing personalised disease management. Proposals should ensure that the development of ‘virtual twin’ models is driven by the end-users/citizens/healthcare professionals needs and their active involvement throughout the development process. Furthermore, applicants should utilise appropriate IT solutions for model visualisation and demonstrate their accessibility and usability for clinical uptake.
- Validate multi-scale patient-specific models and generate evidence that results can deliver clinically meaningful, real-world observations for the human diseases under study. Applicants should implement proof-of-concept, feasibility studies in relevant end user environments and/or real-world settings, and collect evidence of utility vis-à-vis current clinical practice. Dynamic ‘virtual twin’ models and simulations as clinical decision support tools will need be shown to improve prognosis, medical diagnosis, treatments and health outcomes across the continuum of diseases evolution, including co-morbidities and long-term care as appropriate. An exploitation strategy and a business plan, including regulatory and industrial input, should be developed for accelerating clinical and/or market uptake.
The proposals should adhere to the FAIR data principles and adopt data quality standards, GDPR-compliant data sharing, access and data integration procedures based on good practices developed by the European research infrastructures. In relation to the use and interpretation of data, special attention should be paid to systematically assess for bias and/or discrimination (sex/gender, ethnic, minority and vulnerable groups aspects). Proposals are invited to consider adopting recommendations for in-silico models construction and validation.
This topic requires the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.
All projects funded under this topic are strongly encouraged to participate in networking and joint activities, as appropriate. These networking and joint activities could, for example, involve the participation in joint workshops, the exchange of knowledge, the development and adoption of best practices, or joint communication activities. This could also involve networking and joint activities with projects funded under other clusters and pillars of Horizon Europe, or other EU programmes. Therefore, proposals are expected to include a budget for the attendance to regular joint meetings and may consider covering the costs of any other potential joint activities without the prerequisite to detail concrete joint activities at this stage. The details of these joint activities will be defined during the grant agreement preparation phase. In this regard, the Commission may take on the role of facilitator for networking and exchanges, including with relevant stakeholders.
Applicants envisaging to include clinical studies should provide details of their clinical studies in the dedicated annex using the template provided in the submission system. See definition of clinical studies in the introduction to this work programme part.
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Expected effects and impacts
Expected results
- Clinicians and other healthcare professionals have access to and/or use validated multi-scale computational models of individual patients for delivering optimised and cost-effective patient management strategies superior to the current standard of care.
- Healthcare professionals benefit from enhanced knowledge of complex disease onset and progression by recourse to validated, multi-scale and multi-organ models.
- Clinicians and patients benefit from new, improved personalised diagnostics, medicinal products, devices, and therapeutic strategies tailored to the individual patient patho-physiology.
- Citizens and patients have access to validated ‘virtual twin’ models enabling the integration of citizen-generated data with medical and other longitudinal health data, and benefit from early detection of disease onset, prediction of disease progression and treatment options, and effective disease management.
Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
Moldova (Moldova), Albania (Shqipëria), Armenia (Հայաստան), 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), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Norway (Norge), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Tunisia (تونس /Tūnis), Türkiye, Ukraine (Україна), United Kingdom
eligible entities
EU Body, Education and training institution, International organization, Natural Person, 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
To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
- the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions
- the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States
- third countries associated to Horizon Europe - see list of particpating countries
Applications 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.
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.
Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.
A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
Specific cases:
- Affiliated entities — Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.
- Associated partners — Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any conditions regarding associated partners set out in the specific call conditions.
- Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons.
- EU bodies — Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.
- Joint Research Centre (‘JRC’)— Where provided for in the specific call conditions, applicants may include in their proposals the possible contribution of the JRC but the JRC will not participate in the preparation and submission of the proposal. Applicants will indicate the contribution that the JRC could bring to the project based on the scope of the topic text. After the evaluation process, the JRC and the consortium selected for funding may come to an agreement on the specific terms of the participation of the JRC. If an agreement is found, the JRC may accede to the grant agreement as beneficiary requesting zero funding or participate as an associated partner, and would accede to the consortium as a member.
- Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members (e.g. European research infrastructure consortia (ERICs)) may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’. However, if the action is in practice implemented by the individual members, those members should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible.
other eligibility criteria
If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used).
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.
The award criteria are described in General Annex D. The following exceptions apply: The thresholds for each criterion will be 4 (Excellence), 4 (Impact) and 3 (Implementation). The cumulative threshold will be 12.
The rules for the legal and financial set-up of the grant agreements are described in General Annex G. The following exceptions apply: In order to optimise synergies and increase the impact of the projects, all projects selected for funding from this topic will form a cluster and be required to participate in common networking and joint activities (and in determining modalities for their implementation and the specific responsibilities of projects). Depending on the scope of proposals selected for funding, these activities may include:
- Attendance of regular joint meetings (e.g., common kick-off meeting and annual meetings).
- Periodic report of joint activities (delivered at each reporting period).
- Common dissemination and communication activities (which may include, for example: a common dissemination and communication strategy, web portal and visual identity, brochure, newsletters).
- Common Data Management Strategy and Common Policy Strategy (including joint policy briefs).
- Thematic workshops/trainings on issues of common interest.
- Working groups on topics of common interest (e.g. data management, communication and dissemination, science-policy link, scientific synergies)
Call documents
HE-Work Programme 2023-2024, Cluster 1, Destination 5HE-Work Programme 2023-2024, Cluster 1, Destination 5(481kB)
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