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HORIZON EUROPE TOPIC · Cluster 1 · Health

Towards the next generation of frontier Artificial Intelligence models for healthcare

HORIZON-HLTH-2027-03-TOOL-08 — the expected outcomes as checkable statements, what evaluators look for in this topic, and the conditions that shape the proposal.

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ForthcomingCSA · lump sumDeadline 16 September 2027around EUR 2.9 million per project

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TopicHORIZON-HLTH-2027-03-TOOL-08
StatusForthcoming
CallHORIZON-HLTH-2027-03 — Cluster 1 - Health (Single stage - 2027/2)
Type of actionCoordination and Support Actions · lump sum
Opening3 June 2027
Deadline16 September 2027
Budgetaround EUR 2.9 million per project · 1 project expected · EUR 2.9 million in total
Part B page limit28 pages (standard application form; check your call)
TemplateWork Programme 2026–2027 application form

Expected outcomes

Projects should contribute to all of the expected outcomes. The topic says: “This topic aims at supporting activities that are enabling or contributing to one or several expected impacts of destination “Developing and using new tools, technologies and digital solutions for a healthy society”. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim to deliver results that are directed at, tailored towards and contributing to all the following expected outcomes:”

  1. EO1 Researchers and innovators benefit from an improved understanding of how to develop and use the next generation of frontier Artificial Intelligence (AI) models for healthcare, including how to leverage AI Factories and how to combine and expand the capabilities of existing foundation models towards inclusive and personalised medicine.
  2. EO2 Researchers and innovators benefit from an improved understanding of how to leverage highly heterogeneous and multimodal health data spanning a range of anatomical scales (i.e. the micro to the macro level).
  3. EO3 Multidisciplinary stakeholders have access to a collaboratively created roadmap for developing the next generation of frontier AI models for healthcare.

What evaluators will look for in this topic

Expected outcomes

  • Projects should contribute to all of the expected outcomes.
  • For each outcome (EO1 to EO3), name who will use or adopt your results (a specific group, not “industry” or “society”), how they get them, and the indicator that shows the change, with baseline, target and date.
  • Use the topic's own words for each outcome, so the evaluator can tick it off.

What the scope asks for

Evaluators check the proposal against these sentences of the scope. Answer each one visibly, in the call's own words.

  • “Proposals should include all the following coordination and support activities, ensuring multidisciplinary approaches and a broad representation of stakeholders in the consortium (e.g. healthcare professionals, patients, biomedical scientists, AI developers, data engineers, ethics experts):.”
  • “Where relevant, this should build on and strengthen existing EU-funded communities and networks, and could pave the way for a formalised long-term collaboration under one of the available EU instruments.”
  • “The approaches should cover all trustworthy AI aspects.”
  • “This action should take into account the results of other relevant projects on AI in health, in particular in the two GenAI4EU topics HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-CARE-01: “End user-driven application of Generative Artificial Intelligence models in healthcare (GenAI4EU)” and HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-TOOL-03: “Leveraging multimodal data to advance Generative Artificial Intelligence applicability in biomedical research (GenAI4EU)”, and leverage the AI…”
  • “This topic requires the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines and the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/ai-continent-action-plan.…”

Conditions that shape the proposal

  • Part B, sections 1–3: 28 pages (standard application form). Text beyond the limit is not read; tables and figures count.
  • Lump sum: the budget is fixed per work package and paid when each work package is completed. Every work package needs activities and deliverables an evaluator can verify, and the effort must match the money.
  • Coordination and support action: no research is funded. Evaluators look for coordination, networking, dissemination or policy support with a clear audience.
  • Other Eligibility Conditions: “In order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security, it is important to avoid a situation of technological dependency on a non-EU source, in a global context that requires the EU to take action to build on its strengths, and to carefully assess and…”
  • Other Eligibility Conditions: “For the duly justified and exceptional reasons listed in the paragraph above, in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, entities established in an eligible country listed above, but which are directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or by a…”
  • Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes: “The thresholds for each criterion will be 4 (Excellence), 4 (Impact) and 4 (Implementation). The cumulative threshold will be 12.”

Impact pathway and traps

  • The topic asks for social sciences and humanities (SSH) expertise. Evaluators look for SSH partners with a real role in the methodology, not a token task.
  • Users or citizens are part of the scope. Show how they take part in the design and testing, not only that they are informed.
  • Policy or regulation is in scope. Name the policy owners you will reach and what you will give them.
  • Keep outputs, outcomes and impacts apart: what you deliver, what changes when others use it, and the long-term effect.
  • Link your outcomes to the destination's expected impacts in the Work Programme. Destination impacts are long-term effects, not project deliverables.
  • Name the barriers outside the project (regulation, markets, user behaviour) that could block uptake, and what you will do if they do.
  • Section 2.3 (the summary canvas) is optional on this call; the old split into scientific, economic and societal impact is no longer required.
The scope, as published

The AI Continent Action Plan identifies the health sector, encompassing life sciences, medical devices and healthcare delivery, as one of the key strategic sectors. The action will contribute to making European life sciences and healthcare more impactful and productive by fostering the full integration of advanced AI in the health sector and biomedical research, along the objectives of the AI in Science strategy and Apply AI strategy. Healthcare typically involves the combining of multimodal data, ranging from electronic health records through imaging and laboratory to molecular and omics data. This information combination is performed by specialists and is often challenging towards optimised patient care. In Europe, the growing amount of accessible multimodal health data, including via the forthcoming European Health Data Space (EHDS), combined with the increasing availability of high-performance computing facilities (e.g. AI Factories), presents a unique opportunity to develop the next generation of frontier AI models for healthcare. This action anticipates and operationalises the use of such federated infrastructures for research and innovation. Moreover, regulations such as the EHDS regulation and AI Act steer the direction into building an ecosystem fostering ethical and safe innovation on AI in healthcare. AI models are becoming increasingly complex and able to tackle increasingly challenging tasks. This topic will lay the foundation for the development of the next generation of frontier AI models, paving the way for new, advanced AI-powered solutions to increase efficiency and efficacy in the health sector towards improved patient outcomes. It will leverage results, methodologies, data etc. of other relevant EU-funded projects. Proposals should include all the following coordination and support activities, ensuring multidisciplinary approaches and a broad representation of stakeholders in the consortium (e.g. healthcare professionals, patients, biomedical scientists, AI developers, data engineers, ethics experts): Community building: build a large-scale and diverse pan-European community of stakeholders with the multidisciplinary expertise united as required to develop the next generation of frontier AI models for healthcare, with a view to leveraging as a community the potential of AI Factories. Where relevant, this should build on and strengthen existing EU-funded communities and networks, and could pave the way for a formalised long-term collaboration under one of the available EU instruments. Roadmap creation: review previous research to identify the most promising AI models and model development approaches. In addition, risk assess and review evidence on safety and efficacy of existing AI models with reference to the AI Act, related regulatory provisions (including any jurisprudence) and ethical and security considerations, so that frontier AI model development can proceed on a well-informed basis. Finally, create a roadmap for developing the next generation of frontier AI models. Dataset identification, curation, expansion and use: i) identification: identify the most suitable existing datasets for the development of frontier AI models for healthcare, ii) curation: identify how to validate the datasets, ensure dataset interoperability, and convert datasets into formats suitable for frontier AI model development, iii) expansion: identify additional datasets and/or annotations required for frontier AI model development, especially to ensure that datasets are representative and iv) use: identify methods and required infrastructure to allow privacy-preserving use and further expansion of the datasets in alignment with and through the EHDS. Frontier AI model preparatory activities: mapping approaches for training and evaluating frontier AI models (e.g. approaches to combine foundation models for life sciences and healthcare delivery in order to develop more advanced and multidisciplinary models towards personalised medicine). The approaches should cover all trustworthy AI aspects. This action should take into account the results of other relevant projects on AI in health, in particular in the two GenAI4EU topics HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-CARE-01: “End user-driven application of Generative Artificial Intelligence models in healthcare (GenAI4EU)” and HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-TOOL-03: “Leveraging multimodal data to advance Generative Artificial Intelligence applicability in biomedical research (GenAI4EU)”, and leverage the AI Factories and specialised health data infrastructures funded under the Digital Europe Programme, biobanks, relevant ERICs, as well as the data resources accessible through the EHDS infrastructure starting in 2029, funded under EU4Health Programme (2021-2027). This topic requires the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines and the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/ai-continent-action-plan https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/strategy/strategy-research-and-innovation/jobs-and-economy/towards-strategy-european-life-sciences_en; https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1686 https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/research-area/industrial-research-and-innovation/artificial-intelligence-ai-science_en https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/consultations/commission-launches-public-consultation-and-call-evidence-apply-ai-strategy https://health.ec.europa.eu/ehealth-digital-health-and-care/european-health-data-space-regulation-ehds_en https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/activities/digital-programme European Research Infrastructure…

Other topics in HORIZON-HLTH-2027-03

Source and attribution

Topic text from the official topic page on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, retrieved 19 October 2026. © European Union, reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU (CC BY 4.0). Changes: the expected outcomes and impacts are split into numbered statements, long passages are shortened, and the evaluator checklist is GrantWise's own commentary. Your call and the Work Programme always win; check them before you submit. GrantWise is independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the European Commission.