Healthcare of the future

Beneficiary & submission

SUBMISSION There will be a one-step submission and evaluation procedure for joint applications (followed by a rebuttal stage). One obligatory Intent to Apply and one full proposal document shall be prepared by the Project Partners of the project consortium and must be submitted by the Project Coordinator through the THCS Partnership Online Submission System. The English-language call for proposals is the legally binding version, and proposals must be written in English.   ELIGIBLITY CRITERIA Joint transnational research and innovation proposals may be submitted to this call by teams working in different entities such as universities (or other higher education institutions) research and knowledge dissemination organisations, non-university public or private research and/or innovation organisations, hospitals or foundations or any healthcare providers, as well as commercial companies, particularly small and medium-size enterprises. The eligibility of the afore-mentioned institutions, together with details of eligible costs (e.g. personnel, material, consumables, travel money, expenditure) are subject to the administrative requirements of the individual funding organisations participating in this call (for more details see Annex 1 to the Call Text at http://www.thcspartnership.eu).   Size of the consortium Only transnational projects will be funded. Each project proposal must include at least three independent legal entities from at least three different countries participating in the THCS Partnership Joint Call 2023. No more than three consortium partners can be from the same country. The total number of partners in a consortium is limited to nine excluding collaborators, i.e. partners participating with their own expenses and therefore fully self-financed. The number of participants and their research contribution should be appropriate for the aims of the transnational research and innovation project and be reasonably balanced in terms of international participation. Each transnational collaborative project should represent the critical mass to achieve ambitious scientific goals and should clearly demonstrate an added value from working together. Project consortia must include one project coordinator who will represent the consortium externally and will be responsible for its internal management. The consortium coordinator must be eligible for funding by one of the funding organisations listed in Annex I to the Call Text. The same applicant may only be project coordinator of ONE project proposal submitted to this call. Please note that this rule may be subject to regional/national regulations. Other consortia members are partners, of which there are two categories: • The first are partners eligible for funding by a funding organisation participating in the THCS Partnership Joint Call 2023. The consortium must include at least two partners eligible for funding, in addition to the coordinator. • A second and optional category of partners are collaborators, i.e. "fully self-financed partners", bringing their own secured budget into the project. The maximum number of collaborators in a project is two. The collaborator cannot be project coordinator and must demonstrate a clear added value in the project. Collaborators may only participate in project consortia if they demonstrate, at the time of the proposal submission, that their financial and human resources are secured for the entire project period and will be available at the start of the project. Financial and legal modalities Project partners will be funded by their relevant national/regional funding organisation. Eligible costs and funding rules vary between the respective funding organisations. The specific funding rules and eligibility criteria of the national/regional funding organization are described on Annex I of the call text (https://www.thcspartnership.eu).   EVALUATION Formal check and evaluation of proposals The Joint Call Secretariat (JCS) will check all proposals to ensure that they meet the call’s formal criteria whereas each funding organisation will perform a check for compliance with national/regional regulations. Each proposal passing the eligibility check (JCS and country/region) will be provided to three reviewers for evaluation (see evaluation criteria below). The reviewers will perform the assessment of the proposal and complete a written evaluation form with scores and comments for each evaluation criterion. During a Peer Review Panel (PRP) meeting, the reviewers will discuss the proposals and produce a ranking list of proposals recommended for funding.  Before the PRP meeting, each coordinator will be provided with the reviewers’ assessments and will have the opportunity to respond to the reviewers’ questions and comments.   Evaluation Criteria The reviewers will assess if the projects are within the scope of the call and evaluate them using the following criteria: 1. Excellence Relevance: • The extent to how and why the proposed project is relevant to the aim and scope of the call. • The extent to which a clear need for the project is made plausible. • The extent to which the proposed work is ambitious, novel, and goes beyond the state-of-the-art, scientific creativity and originality. • Novelty and boldness of hypotheses/research and innovation questions. • Potential for development of new knowledge beyond the current state of the art, including significant theoretical, methodological, experimental or empirical advancement. The quality of the proposed R&I activities: • Quality of the research and innovation questions, hypotheses and project objectives, and the extent to which they are clearly and adequately specified. • Credibility and appropriateness of the theoretical approach, research and innovation design and use of scientific methods. Appropriate consideration of interdisciplinary approaches; • The extent to which appropriate consideration has been given to societal responsibility, ethical, issues and gender dimensions in research and innovation content. • The extent to which appropriate consideration has been given to involvement of stakeholders/users. • The extent to which end-user knowledge and perspectives are appropriately included and ethical concerns regarding user-involvement has been taken into account. 2. Impact Potential impact of the proposed research and innovation: • The extent to which the planned outputs of the project address important present and/or future scientific and societal challenges; • The extent to which measures or indicators of project success are described in the application. • The extent to which the planned outputs of the project address important present and/or future challenges for the sector(s). • The extent to which the competence developed, and planned outputs of the project will provide the basis for value creation in European business and/or development of the public sector. • The extent to which the planned outputs of the project address UN Sustainable Development Goals or other important present and/or future societal challenges. • The extent to which the potential impacts are clearly formulated and plausible. Communication, engagement and exploitation: • The extent to which the measures to maximise the impact of the project are clearly formulated and plausible. • Quality and scope of communication and engagement activities targeted towards relevant stakeholders/users. • The extent to which the partners are involved in dissemination and utilisation of the project results. 3. Implementation The quality of the project coordinator and project consortium: • The extent to which the project coordinator has relevant expertise and experience and demonstrated ability to perform high-quality research and/or innovation. • The degree of complementarity of the participants and the extent to which the project consortium has the necessary expertise needed to undertake the research effectively. The quality of the project organisation and management: • Effectiveness of the project organisation, including the extent to which resources assigned to work packages are aligned with project objectives and deliverables. • Appropriateness of the allocation of tasks, ensuring that all participants have a valid role and adequate resources in the project to fulfil that role. • Appropriateness of the proposed management structures and governance. • Appropriateness of the partners' contribution to the governance and execution of the project.   Scoring system 5 = Excellent. The proposal successfully addresses all aspects of the criterion in question. 4 = Very good. The proposal addresses the criterion very well, but small improvements are possible. 3 = Good. The proposal addresses the criterion in question well, but certain improvements are necessary 2 = Fair. The proposal generally addresses the criterion, but there are significant weaknesses that need corrections. 1 = Poor. The proposal shows serious weaknesses in relation to the criterion in question. 0 = Failure. The proposal fails to address the criterion in question or cannot be judged because of missing or incomplete information. A proposal is considered fundable if it reaches 3 points for each individual criterion and an overall score of at least 10 points.   Rebuttal stage Before the Peer Review Panel (PRP) members meet to discuss the proposals in a PRP meeting, each coordinator is provided with the reviewers’ assessments. This stage allows applicants to comment on factual errors or misunderstandings that may have occurred in the review process and to reply to reviewers’ questions. However, issues not related to reviewers’ comments or questions cannot be addressed and the work plan cannot be modified at this stage. The applicants will have up to one week for this optional response to the reviewers’ comments. Answers sent after the notified deadline, or not related with reviewers’ comments or questions will be disregarded.   PRP meeting The Joint Call Secretariat (JCS) will give the PRP members access to proposals, reviews and rebuttals, taking into consideration potential conflicts of interest. The PRP will meet to discuss the proposals and, after consideration of the evaluation criteria, external reviews, rebuttals, and their own reviews and discussions, the PRP will assign final scores and rank proposals recommended for funding.   Ethical Clearance After the PRP meeting, members of the Ethics Review Board (ERB) will remotely check the full proposals, which are recommended for funding by the PRP and selected for funding by the Call Steering Committee (CSC), for alignment with ethical norms and regulations. If necessary, tasks that need to be performed and documents that need to be submitted by the consortium will be listed. The Ethics experts may put forward additional conditions that need to be fulfilled by applicants. Only those proposals approved by both the scientific/innovation evaluation and ethical assessment (complying with all central Horizon Europe and regional/national ethical requirements), will be funded.   Decision The international Peer Review Panel will evaluate the proposals based on the abovementioned evaluation criteria and establish a ranking list based on assessment at the panel meeting. Additionally, experts on user involvement will assess the user/stakeholder relevant aspects, and an ethics board will give recommendations on the ethical aspects of the proposals recommended for awarded funding. A short list of proposals will be identified as recommended for funding based on the ranking list. Based on the ranking list established by the PRP and on available funding, the CSC will suggest the projects to be funded to the regional/national funding organisations. Final decisions will be made by the regional/national funding organisations and will be subject to budgetary considerations. An external observer will be present during the PRP meeting and the funders meeting. Project coordinators having submitted an eligible proposal will be informed about the funding recommendation regarding their proposal by the JCS. The project coordinators are responsible to communicate this information to their project partners. Applicants can appeal against the evaluation outcome. This redress procedure only covers the procedural aspects of the evaluation and/or eligibility checks. The redress will not call into question the scientific or technical judgement of appropriately qualified experts. Details of the redress procedure will be provided together with the funding recommendation.

Further information

Additional information on the Call are available on the THCS website: https://www.thcspartnership.eu