EU Funding
The objective of health research under FP7 is to improve the health of European citizens and boost the competitiveness of health-related industries and businesses, as well as address global health issues.
The FP7 Health 2012 work programme places a strong emphasis on the participation of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in most research areas with a major focus on the medical technologies sector. The work programme also consolidates the major effort initiated in 2011 to stimulate innovative ideas for research and SME participation via broad, bottom-up topics to be implemented through a two-stage submission and evaluation procedure. Overall this work programme will continue to support top quality collaborative research that meets the stringent criteria of scientific excellence, professional management of public funding and high socio-economic impact. For its development advice has been taken from multiple stakeholders and experts in the different fields covered by this work programme as part of Theme Health's ongoing consultation processes.
European-funded health research will focus on three pillars
1. Biotechnology, generic tools and medical technologies for human health- producing knowledge that will be applied in the area of health and medicine
- High-throughput research: enhancing data generation, standardisation, acquisition & analysis.
- Detection, diagnosis and monitoring: with emphasis on non-invasive or minimally invasive approaches.
- Prediction of suitability, safety and efficacy of therapies: develop and validate parameters, tools, methods and standards (mainly through the Innovative Medicines Initiative - IMI) and alternatives to animal testing.
- Innovative therapeutic approaches and interventions: gene and cell therapy, regenerative medicine, immunotherapy and vaccines.
2. Translating research for human health- making sure that basic discoveries have practical benefits and improve the quality of life
- Integration of biological data and processes: large-scale data gathering, systems biology.
- Research on the brain and related diseases, human development and ageing.
- Research on infectious diseases (antimicrobial drug resistance, HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, emerging epidemics, neglected infectious diseases).
- Research on major diseases: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes/obesity, rare diseases, other chronic diseases including rheumatoid diseases, arthritis and muscoskeletal diseases.
3. Optimising the delivery of healthcare to European citizens- ensuring that the results of biomedical research will ultimately reach the citizens
- Translation of clinical outcome into clinical practice: patient safety, better use of medicines, benchmarking, pharmacovigilance .
- Quality, efficiency and solidarity of health care systems.
- Enhanced health promotion and disease prevention.
Further information
