[EU] Calling Health Innovators: Join IHI Call 12 and Build the Next Big Consortium

IHI Programme

IHI (Innovative Health Initiative) is a Public–Private Partnership between the EU and industry in the healthcare sector (e.g. biotech, medtech, pharma), aiming to foster integrated innovation across prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care to turn health research into societal impact, particularly in areas of unmet public health need.

Upcoming Call 12

IHI Call 12, planned for early 2026, is a single-stage, applicant-driven call structured around IHI’s strategic research agenda, in which proposals must address unmet health needs, involve large cross-sector public-private consortia, and ensure that at least half of project costs are covered by in-kind contributions from IHI’s industry members or contributing partners.

Very important to keep in mind in a public-private partnership is the required pre-competitive nature of the research. That means:

Early-stage, foundational R&D: activities carried out before companies start competing directly in the market. It covers shared scientific and technological challenges that benefit an entire sector rather than a single company’s product;
Collaborative & open: results are usually widely shared within the consortium and often publicly disseminated, so that multiple players (industry, academia, SMEs, healthcare providers) can build on them. Hence, the aim is not to create a commercial drug, device, or service ready for market, but to develop enabling knowledge, tools, methods, data platforms, standards, or proof-of-concept approaches that later support competitive innovation.

Call to Action – Preparing for IHI Call 12

Engage with the EU-team early on: clarify eligibility, in-kind contributions, and administrative requirements. It’s not your typical EU research proposal architecture
Start building your consortium (start soon): reach out to academic, clinical, SME, and industry partners across sectors. Don’t forget the IHI industry partners!
Draft concept notes: start shaping project ideas and align them with the IHI Strategic Research Agenda.
Leverage networking opportunities:

Join the IHI brokerage event: Brussels Nov 4- 5. There are opportunities to pitch your concept ideas! Register before 20/10.
Use the partnering platform to find and connect with collaborators.

Financing specifics

For academic/clinical partners full reimbursement of the action tasks. However, you need to team up with IHI Industry and Contributing Partners who need to cover 50 % of the total project budget (most often by in-kind contributions). At this moment it is unclear what the contribution of the European Commission will be. In a previous call, it was in the range of 8-15 million euro.
The financial commitment of the IHI industry and contributing partners needs to be submitted together with the proposal.

More information and contact

Call opening: beginning of 2026
Submission deadline: anticipated end of April 2026
IHI call 12 pre-launch website
Contact the EU-Team for more information and to get support
Contact the EU-Team Account Manager for cluster Health - Evi Lippens for content advice

2 oktober 2025 14:11