Transnational call for proposals aiming to transform healthcare systems - THCS 2023

The French National Research Agency is joining the new transnational call for proposals launched within the framework of the Transforming Health and Care Systems (THCS) Partnership, focused on organizing and improving health systems to alleviate the pressure on healthcare facilities while offering patients a more tailored care pathway that fits their needs and preferences. This call will bring together 36 funding agencies from 23 countries and will have a global budget of more than 35 million euros.

The objective of this call is to encourage the optimization of patient care pathways and contribute to the transition towards more sustainable, efficient, resilient, ethical, high-quality, and accessible person-centered healthcare systems. The call addresses the challenge posed by the increasing number of patients treated in hospitals or other healthcare facilities and the need to ensure continuity of care and offer better integration of hospital services with outpatient care.

The call aims:

• to provide the necessary knowledge to build the health and care of the future. This includes addressing several dimensions of health and care systems such as quality, safety, efficiency, effectiveness, accessibility, sustainability, economy, ethics and resilience in reorganised health and care settings. By providing this knowledge, the call aims to support the development of new and innovative solutions that can address the current and future challenges facing health and care systems.
   
• to support the implementation of innovative solutions on a larger scale. This includes identifying and promoting the adoption and transferability of evidence-based practices that have already been proven to be effective in some contexts in addressing the challenges facing health and care systems. With research and innovation supporting the implementation of these existing solutions, the call aims to accelerate the pace of change and make a positive impact on health and care systems in a more efficient way.

To achieve this ambition, the complementarity of hospital and ambulatory care, as well as the articulation between the two, must be optimized. Organizational innovations, continuity and integration of care, as well as digital technologies offer a multitude of possibilities for such optimization.

Only transnational projects will be funded. The following conditions apply for the composition of consortia:

• A minimum of three eligible partners and a maximum of nine eligible partners (excluding ‘collaborators’ partners participating on their own funds) from at least three different countries participating in the call.
   
• No more than three eligible partners from the same country in the same consortium.
   
• Maximum of two collaborators per consortium. Collaborators are self-funded partners: i.e. partners that are not requesting funds in this Joint Transnational Call provided by one of the participating funding organisations (e.g. from non-funding countries or not fundable according to national/regional regulations of the participating funding organisations).

The participation of end-users, beneficiaries, stakeholders, and businesses is encouraged.

ANR will exclusively fund the French partners (except healthcare institutions to be funded by the French Ministry of Health (see below)) of the selected projects, up to a maximum of 260,000 euros per partner (310,000 euros maximum if the partner is the project coordinator). The funding will be awarded for a maximum initial period of three years.

The Directorate General of Health Offer (DGOS) of the Ministry of Health and Prevention, also participating in this call, will support healthcare facilities (e.g. “établissements de santé”, “groupements de coopération sanitaire”, “maisons de santé” or “centres de santé”). To learn more.

The project selection process will be carried out in one stage but will require the submission of a letter of intent (Intent to Apply).

The completed scientific proposal must be submitted electronically on the call submission site (no proposal will be accepted by ANR).

Countries participating

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland/UK, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland