EU Commission releases draft Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2016-2017 in the area of Health, demographic change and well-being
5 October 2015
The draft Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2016-2017 in the area of Health, demographic change and well-being has just been released. This is expected to be ratified in mid-October, with calls for proposals coming out in early 2016.The overall strategic orientation for the ‘Health, Demographic Change and Well-being’ Work Programme 2016-2017 is ‘Promoting healthy ageing and Personalised healthcare’. The programme will implement several research priorities: personalised medicine, rare diseases, human biomonitoring, mental health, comparative effectiveness research, e/mhealth, active and healthy ageing, data security, big data. The challenges derive from the ageing of European population and lifestyle patterns, which, if not actively managed through a life-course approach, will increase the burden of chronic diseases on individuals, on existing health and care systems and on society.
Some of the interesting topics include:
SC1-PM-09–2016: New therapies for chronic diseases
Specific Challenge: Chronic diseases represent a significant burden on individuals and healthcare systems in the European Union and beyond. Innovative and effective therapeutic approaches are required to provide the best quality of care when prevention strategies fail. While considerable basic knowledge has been generated by biomedical research in recent years, the development of new therapies is stagnating, in part due to a lack of clinical validation.
SC1-PM-10–2017: Comparing the effectiveness of existing healthcare interventions in the adult population
Specific Challenge: Effective health care and prevention may be improved by additional evidence as to the most effective health interventions. Growing numbers of patients affected by chronic diseases also call for efficiently managing co-morbidities.
SC1-PM-12–2016: PCP – eHealth innovation in empowering the patient
Specific Challenge: Empowering the hospitalised patients, outpatients and their families/carers to support a continuum of care across a range of services can relieve the pressure on governments to provide more cost-effective healthcare systems by improving utilisation of healthcare and health outcomes. The support for patients should be understood broadly covering a continuum of care in hospital, in outpatient care, and integration back to working life.
SC1-PM-21-2016: Implementation research for scaling-up of evidence based innovations and good practice in Europe and low- and middle-income countries
Specific Challenge: Research evidence and technological and process improvements during the past decades present a large opportunity for improving the functioning and sustainability of health systems. However, the uptake of well-researched and proven interventions addressing current challenges is still slow. Implementation research on scaling up evidence-based innovations and good practices intervention should facilitate the transferability of these practices across the borders of Europe and beyond.