Transforming Health and Care Systems (THCS) - JTC 2026 - Access to care

Fond National de la Recherche Scientifique (F.R.S.-FNRS)

Sciences de la vie (2)

Aim of the call

The aim of the call is to fund research and innovation projects that, within an ecosystem approach8 , contribute to ensuring equitable access to and utilisation of health and care services. Through the funded research and innovation projects, policy and decision makers should gain the knowledge and tools necessary to implement the reallocation of resources as the health and care system undergoes a transition to meet new and ongoing challenges.

Outcomes and impact

Applicants are expected to actively involve, in an ecosystem approach, relevant stakeholders, such as:

• decision makers, including public health authorities, social care agencies, payers, service providers, and regulatory bodies, to ensure that outputs are aligned with operational needs and capable of being absorbed into existing governance and delivery structures.

• patient and citizen organizations and other related non-governmental organisations.

• enterprise.

• other end users that can give input to enhance adoption and support long-term impact.

The call aims at supporting research and innovation projects that as many as possible of the THCS objectives (operational, specific and global) and therewith contribute to the following expected impacts:

1. Health Outcomes: Improvements in health outcomes, such as reduced morbidity and mortality, improved management of chronic conditions, and enhanced mental health and well-being.

2. System Efficiency and Effectiveness: Enhancements in the efficiency and effectiveness of health and care systems, including reduced healthcare costs, decreased hospital readmissions, and streamlined care pathways.

3. Access and Equity: Increases in the accessibility and equity of health services, ensuring that all individuals, regardless of socioeconomic status, geographic location, or cultural background, can access high-quality care.

4. Policy and Practice Influence: Influence policy decisions, regulatory frameworks, and clinical practices, leading to evidence-based improvements in health and care systems(e.g., guidelines adopted, procurement models reformed).

5. People Empowerment and Self-Management: Promote patient and community engagement and empowerment, enabling individuals to play an active role in their health and care (e.g., self-management tools, new models with the involvement of patient organisations).

6. Knowledge Generation and Dissemination: The contribution of the project to the generation of new knowledge, best practices, and innovative solutions, and the effectiveness of dissemination strategies to share findings with relevant stakeholders (e.g. publications, training curricula, practitioner networks).

7. Ecosystem Approach: The facilitation of multidisciplinary and intersectoral collaborations, within and beyond the consortium, that bring together diverse expertise from a variety of fields and sectors, including healthcare, technology, digital health, public health, health economics, implementation, humanities and social sciences, education, industry, non-profits organisations and end-users, to address complex health and care challenges. The embedding of the endeavour into organisational strategies will raise the transformational power of the consortium. Established links to the wider ecosystems, including the policy level, ensure that the project's reach and impact are maximised. See Guidance to Applicants p. 5 for more details on the ecosystems approach.

8. Sustainability and Environmental Impact: Consideration of the long-term sustainability of the proposed solutions and their environmental impact, including the promotion of greener health practices and adaptation to climate change.

Financement

Each partner is funded separately by the national/regional funding organisation they are applying to. They must fulfil the conditions of their funding organisation.
The maximum amount of requested funding per project is 300.000 EUR for a total period of thee years. If the project involves the recruitment of a PhD student, the project duration of the F.R.S.-FNRS sub-project could be up to four years.

Eligible costs items

Personnel costs: 80,000€ EUR per year on average for the duration of the project. The usual duration of ERA-NET research programmes is three years. However, when the project involves a PhD student, the principal investigator can apply for an additional one year funding in order to complete the four years PhD programme. Since this programme is co-funded by the European Commission, this final year should not be included in the budget submitted to this call.

Equipment: can be eligible up to 20% of the total budget of the project

Running costs: travel expenses; organisation of small scientific events in Belgium; consumables and the following support costs: consumables Publication Designing (conception d’ouvrage) Dictionary Production (réalisation de dictionnaire) Purchase of Books Encoding Software Access Rights Congress Registration Fees Purchase of Computer Scanning Travel costs Visa costs Open Access publication of an article up until 500 euros (see F.R.S-FNRS Open Access policy).

“Overhead”

For “overhead” costs:

Operating expenses: up to 1% within the granted budget. This percentage should be included in the requested operating budget.

Personnel: up to 2% outside of the granted budget. This percentage will be paid upon reimbursement of expenses to institutions by the F.R.S.-FNRS.

Pour postuler

Eligibility of the consortia

A two-step submission and evaluation procedure has been established: pre-proposals and fullproposals. In both phases, one joint proposal document shall be prepared by the partners of a joint

transnational project. Pre-proposals must be submitted by the project coordinator to the JCS via the electronic submission system (https://proposals.etag.ee/thcs/2026).

The decision on which applicants are selected to submit a full-proposal will be communicated to applicants solely by the JCS from 11 May 2026.

Please note that joint full-proposals will only be accepted from applicants explicitly invited by the JCS to submit fullproposals. Full-proposals need to be completed on

See call document for more details.

Eligibility for belgian partners (F.R.S. - FNRS):

Applicants requesting funding from F.R.S. FNRS must comply with the following rules.

The applicant must be affiliated to a university from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB).

At the closure of the call, the applicant should also:

- Be a permanent researcher of F.R.S-FNRS (Chercheur qualifié, maître de recherches ou Directeur de recherche) or;

- Hold a tenure track position (or an assimilated position including pending tenure track) with a research institution from the FWB

After the submission of applications, the F.R.S.-FNRS and the research institutions are required to verify the eligibility of the candidates. The F.R.S.-FNRS reserves the right to refuse those whose eligibility criteria would not comply with the Regulation. In order the check the compliance with these eligibility criteria, please contact your contact person at ULB-TTO (see details below). The complete F.R.S-FNRS rules for international research projects is available at the following link: https://www.frs-fnrs.be/docs/Reglement-et-documents/International/FRS-FNRS_PINT-Multi.pdf

Requis d'admission

Transnational level

• The consortium must include at least three (3) eligible partners from three different countries whose funding organisations participate in the call. At least two (2) members of the consortium should be legal entities from two different EU Member States or Horizon Europe associated countries. Each of these partners must be eligible and request funding from the respective funding organisation. All three legal entities must be independent of each other.

• Maximum number of partners eligible for funding is nine (9).

• Maximum two (2) eligible partners from the same country.

• The project coordinator must be eligible for funding by a regional/national funding organisation participating in the call.

• Maximum of two (2) collaborators per consortium are permitted, or a maximum of three (3) collaborators if one or more of the collaborators is an operational stakeholder (see Section 9.3). Collaborators are self-funded partners, i.e. partners that do not request funds from one of the participating FPOs (i.e. partners from non-funding countries or partners who are not eligible according to regional/national regulations of the participating funding organisations).

Collaborators do not count towards the maximum number of partners.

National/regional level

Applicants must provide basic administrative data by submitting an administrative application on e-space within 5 working days after the general deadline of the call to be eligible. Please select the “PINT-MULTI” funding instrument when creating the administrative application.

Deadlines

Deadline for short proposal submission is 2 February 2026, 14:00 CET

Deadline for submission to FNRS is 9 February 2026, 14:00 CET

Deadline for full proposal submission is 30 June 2026, 14:00 CEST