Innovative Health Initiative

The Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) aims to translate health research and innovation into real benefits for patients and society, and ensure that Europe remains at the cutting edge of interdisciplinary, sustainable, patient-centric health research. Health research and care increasingly involve diverse sectors. By supporting projects that bring these sectors together, IHI will pave the way for a more integrated approach to health care, covering prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and disease management.

IHI is a partnership between the European Union and European industry associations representing the pharmaceutical, medical technology, biotechnology, digital health and vaccine industries, namely COCIR, EFPIA (including Vaccines Europe), EuropaBio, and MedTech Europe.

IHI’s total budget is €2.4 billion. Half of this comes from Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation programme. The IHI industry partners have committed €1 billion to IHI, and a further €200 million can be committed by other organisations that decide to become Contributing Partners. IHI builds on the successes of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), which ran from 2008 to 2021. The IHI Programme Office continues to manage and promote projects launched under IMI.

Latest call

A new call has recently been published:

• Total budget: €163.1 million.

• Call format: Single-stage, applicant-driven—participants propose projects tackling major health challenges.

• Who can apply: European consortia of public and private sector partners, including companies, research institutes, hospitals, and patient groups.

Application process

Proposals must be submitted via the electronic submission system of the Funding and Tenders Portal. To start submitting your proposal, simply click on the relevant topic above - this will take you directly to that topic's page on the portal. Once there, scroll down and click on 'Start submission'.

To submit a proposal via the electronic submission system, you will need to have an EU Login account and ensure that your organisation is registered as a beneficiary.

Topics: The Five Priority Research Topics

Projects must align with one of these five objectives from the IHI Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda:

• Understanding determinants of health: Research to uncover biological, environmental, and lifestyle factors affecting health; personalized medicine.
• Integration of fragmented health R&I efforts: Connecting data, stakeholders, and research disciplines for better healthcare outcomes.
• People-centered integrated healthcare solutions: Building systems and tools for holistic, patient-focused care across multiple medical specialties.
• Harnessing digitalisation and data sharing: Next-gen digital technologies and AI for healthcare, including data platforms for diagnosis, decision support, and research collaboration.
• Assessing the value of innovative healthcare solutions: Developing frameworks and tools for

Why Is This Call Important?

• It’s Europe’s largest public-private health partnership call, maximizing public and industry investment for innovative, market-shaping health solutions.

• Pioneers can secure multi-million euro grants for interdisciplinary projects, scale up digital health and connected care, and shape the future of European healthcare.

• The call prioritizes building ambitious, patient-focused solutions on a collaborative European scale, supporting both early-stage and advanced health technology innovation.

Applicants willing to get in touch with IHI can do it by following this link.

Portfolio: Accelerate.EU, Ad-Riddle, AutoPix, Claims.