European Partnership on Transforming Health and Care Systems 2026

This call mandates collaborative, transnational research, innovation, and assessment actions. It is compulsory to engage in one or more of the following types of action: applied research, implementation research, piloting, upscaling and/or testing. All projects must demonstrate proof of concept(s), validate concepts, models, or solutions, and showcase demonstrations of solutions in relevant health and care ecosystems. Translation to other settings of already adopted solutions is also within the scope of this call.

The outcomes should aim at transforming care pathways and organisational models and support long-term adoption by health systems. Projects are encouraged to develop new service models, practices, or scalable innovations that directly enhance access and equity in care delivery. While digital tools and technological components may support these innovations, the main focus must remain on health service transformation, sustainability, and implementation in real-world health and care systems.

Proposals should:

• Be explicitly positioned in relation to and build on the existing evidence base to ensure research is addressing a clear evidence gap.
• Devise strategies to meet pre-identified gaps in access to health and care, combining interdisciplinary care, sustainability and innovation.
• Address how to improve access to all levels of health and care through financial models, models for delivering health and care services and setting up of interdisciplinary integrated care programmes.
• Develop measures that compensate for disparities in access to health and care due to one or more of: socio-economic status; geographic location; racial, cultural, or gender identity; literacy and language barriers; limitations in infrastructure and workforce capacity.
• Contribute to bridging the gap in access, ensuring all individuals have access to essential health services by developing, demonstrating and piloting targeted, actionable interventions.
• Ensure proper geographical distribution of health and care services, including long-term care, across different regions in each country, including adequate coverage for remote and rural areas.
• Address both individual and structural barriers.

Additionally, proposals are highly encouraged to:

• Identify best practice examples of existing policies that are particularly successful in addressing inequalities in access to health and care, as described in this call.
• Run de novo case studies applying the proposed approaches in particular countries or regions.

Additionally, attention is needed to gender and cultural inequities in health and care utilisation within the broader social domain.

All proposals would benefit from co-creation with stakeholders, in particular people from disadvantaged groups. Proposals are encouraged to include aspects of social sciences in an interdisciplinary approach.

Irish Partner(s) are not eligible for HRB funding for:

• Proposals involving basic biomedical research;[1]
• Research intended to create human embryos solely for the purposes of research or for the purposes of stem cell procurement, including by means of somatic cell nuclear transfer;
• Applications from individuals applying for, holding, or employed under funding received from the tobacco industry;[2]
• Applications from individuals applying for, holding, or employed under funding received from the alcohol industry and related actors;[3]

Major changes since the last rounds (JTCs 2023–2025):

We have introduced a sign-off process for Host Institutions (HIs) to align with other HRB schemes. Each project partner that is requesting funding from HRB needs a HI sign off. Please consult the ‘Host Institution sign off’ section below for additional information.

[1] Basic biomedical research refers to very early stage, fundamental research. HRB permits pre-clinical research within this call on the understanding that pre-clinical studies represent an important stage of research that occurs before testing in humans to find out if a drug, treatment or procedure is likely to be useful. Work with animal models and human samples is eligible under this call.

[2] Any company, entity, or organisation involved in the development, production, promotion, marketing, or sale of tobacco in any country of the world. The term also includes any companies that are a subsidiary or a holding company or affiliate of the above. This also includes e-cigarette companies and non-tobacco related companies which are fully or partially owned by the tobacco industry

[3] Including social aspects/public relations organisations (SAPROs) funded by alcohol companies or trade associations in which such companies are members.

Projects are expected to start in early 2027. Awards will have a duration of up to 36 months.

Please note: Project partners will be funded by their relevant national/regional funding organisations. Eligible costs and funding rules may vary between the respective funding organisations (see the call text).

For applicants based in Ireland, the HRB will provide funding for projects up to a maximum of €330,000 direct costs per award. Additional funding of up to €75,000 direct costs will be made available for coordination activities (cannot be used to cover equipment and consumables) bringing the total to €405,000 direct costs for coordinators. The maximum total award, including overhead contribution, will be €430,000, for a partner and €530,000 for applicants who take on the role of coordinator.

Funding available is inclusive of overheads and pension contributions.

The HRB plans to commit up to €1,060,000 to the THCS JTC2026 awards. Quality permitting a minimum of two awards will be funded.

The award will offer research-related costs for:

• Personnel: (i) Salary-related costs in line with the most recent IUA (or other most applicable) scale for funded personnel; (ii) Salary related costs for Lead Applicants in contract positions up to a maximum of 0.5 FTE protected time for research funded by HRB; (iii) Postgraduate stipends and fees (Master’s students only).
• Direct running costs (including travel, mobility costs, patient-related costs, and costs to support interventional studies)
• PPI costs
• Small equipment costs (not to exceed €10k)
• FAIR data management costs: Data stewardship costs (e.g. service/fees from data steward, access to secondary data, costs of making data FAIR, etc.)
• Dissemination and knowledge exchange activities (including open access scientific publications, dissemination-related travel, etc.)
• Sub-contracting costs for the provision of a service can be covered up to a maximum of 20% of direct costs. This would need to conform with the Host Institution, National and EU procurement rules. These costs should be necessary, specific to the project and proportionate and they should normally constitute only a limited part of the project.
• Overheads contribution

Please refer to “HRB JTC Budget Guidance 2026” for further details.

Note: The THCS award will not fund PhD stipends and fees, nor the salary and related costs of tenured academic staff within research institutions (including buy-out from teaching time etc.). The latter does not apply to contract researchers, as outlined above.

The budget requested and the award duration must reflect the scale and nature of the proposed research.

Funded Personnel

Alignment between personnel requested and the proposed project should be demonstrated. Roles and responsibilities of funded personnel must be differentiated and clear.

This scheme is not framed as a training initiative for higher degree candidates. It will not cover costs for PhD students. Where candidates for a Master’s degree are proposed to work on projects, Lead Applicants must carefully consider:

• The complexity, scale, objectives, and dependencies of the project.
• The suitability of such project in terms of delivering a clearly identifiable original research project or the potential difficulties in clustering various pieces of work packages for a Master’s thesis. The skills, expertise and experience level required to carry it out.
• Any requirements and/or restriction relating to the Master’s candidate’s registration with the Host Institution, and this should be accounted for when determining the start date of the award.

Host Institutions from Northern Ireland are not eligible for HRB funding for this call and should check their eligibility for funding via NIHR.

Only transnational projects will be funded, and consortia must meet specific criteria as detailed in the call text. There is a partner search tool available for this call.

Lead Applicants requesting HRB funding:

Note that HRB use the term ‘Lead Applicant’ to refer to a coordinator or partner applying for HRB funding.

The following will apply to partners seeking HRB funding – i.e., Lead Applicants.[4] If there is more than one Irish partner/coordinator and they are based in different Host Institutions (see below), they must apply as separate partners.

Where more than one Irish coordinator/partner exists, each must meet the Lead Applicant eligibility criteria. However, the HRB will only contract with the Host Institution of one Lead Applicant (this must be the coordinator if an Irish coordinator exists).[5] This Lead Applicant will serve as the primary point of contact for the HRB during the review process and on the award, if successful. They will be responsible for the scientific and technical direction of the Irish research programme. They have primary fiduciary responsibility and accountability for carrying out the research within the funding limits awarded and in accordance with the terms and conditions of the HRB. Where applicable, they must distribute the funds appropriately to the second Irish partner via collaboration and/or consortium agreements.

Each applicant can submit a maximum of two proposals but can only be a coordinator on one.

Lead Applicants must:

Hold a post (permanent or a contract that covers the duration of the award) in a HRB recognised Host Institution in the Republic of Ireland (the “Host Institution”) as an independent investigator. For clinicians, an adjunct position in a HRB recognised Host Institution is acceptable (an accompanying letter of support is required in these cases, as well as in the case of contract positions – see ‘How to apply’ below).

OR

Be an individual who will be recognised by the Host Institution upon receipt of an award as an independent investigator who will have a dedicated office and research space for the duration of award, for which they will be fully responsible. The Lead Applicant does not necessarily need to be employed by the Host Institution at the time of the application submission (an accompanying letter of support is required in these cases – see ‘How to apply’ below).

They must show evidence of achievement as an independent researcher in their chosen research field by:

• Demonstrating a record of research output, with at least three publications of original research in peer reviewed journals. Where appropriate, they should also provide evidence of other outputs (e.g., published book chapters, reports to government, research data and datasets, research materials, databases, audio/video products, national and/or international reports, patents, models and protocols, software production, evidence of influence on health policy and practice, outreach and/or knowledge exchange activities, media coverage or other relevant activities) and/or any other relevant outputs that have resulted in a significant impact in their field.
• Demonstrating record of independence by showing that they have secured at least one independently peer-reviewed research grant for a research project, as either the Lead Applicant or a Co-Applicant. Funding received for travel to seminars/conferences and/or small personal bursaries will not be considered in this regard.
• Show evidence that they possess the capability and authority to manage and supervise the research team.

Coordinators are expected to have relevant experience in grant management as Lead Applicant on large awards or as Work Package lead in consortium grants (e.g., Horizon Europe).

Host Institution:

The Host Institution for the award is normally that of the Lead Applicant based in Ireland but it may be another organisation/institution designated by the research team, where it is clearly justified. In order to be eligible to apply for funding, an Institution must be an approved HRB Host Institution no later than two calendar months before the closing date of a call. A list of currently approved HRB Host Institutions can be found on the HRB website.

[4] In view of the overwhelming evidence that both active and passive smoking of tobacco are injurious to health, the HRB is unwilling to fund applications from individuals applying for, holding, or employed under a research grant from the tobacco industry.

[5] For administrative purposes, the second partner will be recorded in HRB systems as a Co-Applicant.

There will be a two-stage application procedure for joint applications. One joint proposal document (in English) shall be prepared by the partners and must be submitted by the Coordinator in electronic format no later than 13:00 GMT on 2 February 2026 via the electronic proposal submission system. No other means of submission will be accepted.

For further details, please refer to the respective submission forms available through the THCS webpage. If you need additional information, please contact the Joint Call Secretariat (JCS).

Lead Applicants based in Ireland will be required to provide additional information to the HRB at pre-proposal stage:

• New applicants to HRB’s Joint Transnational Calls must demonstrate that they meet the eligibility criteria by completing the Lead Applicant eligibility form by the submission deadline. This does not apply to previous applicants to JTCs.
• Host Institution Letters of Support must be provided for (1) all named Lead Applicants in a contract position and (2) Adjunct Professors not directly employed by the HI. These must be emailed to HRB-JTCs@hrb.ie or attached with your Lead Applicant eligibility form before the pre-proposal submission deadline. The formal letter on headed notepaper, dated and signed by the Head of School/Research Centre/Hospital must include the following information:
  • Case (1): [Host Institution – insert name] which is the host institution of [applicant – insert name] confirms that [applicant – insert name]: (i) holds an employment contract which extends until [insert date] or will be recognized by the host institution upon receipt of the HRB [scheme] award as a contract researcher; (ii) has an independent office and research space/facilities for which they are fully responsible for at least the duration of the award, and (iii) has the capability and authority to mentor and supervise the research team.
  • Case (2): [Host Institution – insert name] confirms that [applicant – insert name] has the authority and resources allocated to hold and manage a grant under their Adjunct status for at least the duration of the award.
• You must send the final application to your Research Office (RO) who will complete the HI JTC sign-off form and return this along with the application to HRB (see ‘Host Institution sign off’ below). Note that the deadline for sign-off is three working days after the submission deadline so you should send your RO the application as soon as you have access to it. We also recommend that you notify the Host Institution signatory of your intention to apply as soon as possible in the application process. We require HI sign off for each project partner that is requesting funding from HRB.

At full proposal stage, applicants must submit a justification for their requested budget, and clarification on deliverables assigned to the partner from Ireland. Templates requesting this information will be provided by the HRB.

Please refer also to HRB Grant Policies.

We have introduced a sign-off process for Host Institutions (HIs) to align with other HRB schemes. The ‘HI JTC sign off form’ (available on this page) must now be signed by the authorised signatory (Dean of Research or equivalent person authorised to endorse research grant applications for the Host Institution).

As noted under ‘How to Apply’ the Lead Applicant must send the final application to their Research Office (RO). The RO should then facilitate the completion of the ‘HI JTC sign off form’. This will confirm that the Lead Applicant is eligible and that the HI is willing to participate as HI for the application.

Note that if there is more than one project partner from your institution (i.e., more than one Principal Investigator, as listed in the application form), you must sign off for each if they are requesting HRB funds.

The completed form and application should be sent to HRB within three working days following the submission deadline.

For general information, please contact the Joint Call Secretariat (JCS):

• French National Research Agency (ANR): THCS@anr.fr
• The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw): thcs@zonmw.nl
• National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR): thcs@ncbr.gov.pl

For country-specific information for Irish Partners, please contact the HRB, Ireland:

Dr Siobhán Hackett

Email: HRB-JTCs@hrb.ie