The European Commission will allocate another 122 million euros aiming at enhancing research and development to combat the coronavirus crisis. The money will be allocated to the Horizon 2020 programme, calling all potential stakeholders to declare their interest and take part.
The new call contributes to the already existing pledge by the commission that is looking at an amount of 1.4 billion euros, under the Coronavirus Global Response initiative, launched on May the 4rth 2020.
Another important arrow in the EU quiver, this call is the latest addition to a range of EU funded research and innovation actions against the pandemic. The aim is to accompany all earlier actions that develop diagnostics, treatments and vaccines through the strengthening of the capacity to manufacture and deploy solutions addressing the current needs.
"We are mobilising all means at our disposal to fight this pandemic with testing, treatments and prevention. But to succeed against the coronavirus, we must also understand how it impacts our society and how to best deploy these interventions rapidly. We must explore technological solutions to manufacture medical equipment and supplies faster, to monitor and prevent the spread of the disease, and to better care for patients.”
Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth
"We are supporting the health authorities, healthcare professionals and the general public in all Member States in tackling the coronavirus crisis. To this end, we are deploying innovative technologies and tools that can quickly be used to prevent, optimally treat, and recover from this pandemic and prepare for its aftermath. These include digital solutions and technologies such as telemedicine, data, AI, robotics, and photonics.”
Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market
All projects that will receive funding under this call should focus on repurposing the manufacturing for even faster production of the important medical supplies and the necessary equipment that will be needed to conduct more tests, treat current patients and prevent more attacks.
They should also focus on developing technologies that will, in the future improve the detection of Covid-19 and other viruses as well as enhance patient care. The key will be to use large cohorts of patients across Europe as study material that will help scientists understand the behavioural patterns of the virus and all the potential socio-economic impacts it will have on a European and Global scale. The aim will be to create strategies that will either prevent those impacts or deal with them upon need.
We are now looking at a June 11th 2020 deadline, seeing as the main purpose of the call is to deliver actions faster than any other call. Europe, and the world at large, urgently need innovative solutions to contain and mitigate the outbreak, and to better care for patients, survivors, vulnerable groups, frontline health care staff and their communities. That alone is enough for the Commission for demand faster solutions through sorter timelines.
Availability and affordability are two major aspects of these new solutions. They need to be in line with the principles of the Coronavirus Global Response. For this purpose, the Commission will include rapid data-sharing clauses in grant agreements, resulting from this new call, to ensure that findings and outcomes can be put to use immediately.
Background
This new special call under Horizon 2020 complements earlier actions to support 18 projects with €48.2 million to develop diagnostics, treatments, vaccines and preparedness for epidemics, as well as the €117 million invested in 8 projects on diagnostics and treatments through the Innovative Medicines Initiative, and measures to support innovative ideas through the European Innovation Council. It implements Action 3 of the ERAvsCorona Action Plan, a working document resulting from dialogues between the Commission services and national institutions.
The new call will cover five areas with the following indicative budgets:
- Repurposing of manufacturing for vital medical supplies and equipment (€23 million)
- Medical technologies, Digital tools and Artificial Intelligence analytics to improve surveillance and care at high Technology Readiness Levels (€56 million)
- Behavioural, social and economic impacts of the outbreak responses (€20 million)
- Pan-European COVID-19 cohorts (€20 million)
- The collaboration of existing EU and international cohorts of relevance to COVID-19 (€3 million)
Cohort studies typically observe large groups of individuals, recording their exposure to certain risk factors to find clues as to the possible causes of disease. They can be prospective studies and gather data going forward, or retrospective cohort studies, which look at data already collected.
You can find more information by visiting the EU's official website. The EUcalls database will be kept up to date with the latest Horizon 2020 calls regarding the coronavirus pandemic. Stay tuned!
