Virtual Human Twins (VHTs) for integrated clinical decision support in prevention and diagnosis

The Horizon Europe call HORIZON-HLTH-2027-03-TOOL-04 focuses on developing Virtual Human Twins (VHTs) to enhance clinical decision support in prevention and diagnosis. It aims to support multidisciplinary research involving universities, research institutes, healthcare entities, and technology companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The funding type falls under HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions, with a total budget of approximately €39.3 million, allowing grants of €10 million to €12 million per project, targeting around four projects.

Eligible applicants include organizations based in EU, EEA, and associated countries, as well as legal entities from the United States. The project aims to create sophisticated computational models that digitally represent patients’ health across multiple scales and organ systems, focusing on high-burden diseases like cardiovascular conditions, cancer, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disorders.

The call promotes a consortium approach, necessitating collaboration among diverse organizations to leverage various expertise areas, including artificial intelligence, biomedical research, and health informatics. Projects are expected to design, validate, and integrate multi-organ models that improve the understanding of complex patient pathophysiology and enhance diagnostic accuracy.

The application process is a single-stage open call, scheduled to open on June 3, 2027, and close on September 22, 2027. Proposals will be evaluated based on excellence, impact, and implementation, with the possibility of funding up to 100% of eligible project costs, implying no mandatory co-funding requirement. The call emphasizes responsible AI development and the integration of social sciences in project design.

In summary, this call is part of a larger initiative to advance healthcare technology and personalization, with a strong emphasis on collaboration, integration with existing healthcare systems, and real-world clinical validation of proposed solutions.

This is a call for proposals under the Horizon Europe program, specifically within Cluster 1 Health, focusing on "Virtual Human Twins (VHTs) for integrated clinical decision support in prevention and diagnosis." The call, identified as HORIZON-HLTH-2027-03-TOOL-04, aims to support activities that contribute to developing and using new tools, technologies, and digital solutions for a healthy society. The expected outcome is to provide healthcare professionals with access to multi-scale, multi-organ models of individual patients to improve prevention and diagnosis in high disease burden areas, enhance their knowledge of complex diseases, and benefit patients with diverse characteristics through improved, integrated, and personalized prevention and diagnostic tools. The scope of the call involves developing VHTs, which are digital representations and in-silico models of an individual's health and disease state at different levels of anatomy. These multi-scale, multi-organ VHT solutions have the potential for tailored prevention and diagnosis, particularly in areas of high disease burden, and can significantly benefit citizens' health and the efficiency of EU health systems. Proposals should build upon previous work, such as projects funded under HORIZON-HLTH-2023-TOOL-05-03, and focus on multi-disciplinary approaches at greater complexity, strengthening their deployment in health and care, including integration into care pathways and links with other decision support tools.

The proposals should address the following activities:

1.  Select clinical use cases to deliver multi-disciplinary, high impact solutions requiring multi-organ, multi-scale approaches to modelling complex pathophysiology over time, as a basis from where prevention and diagnosis of diseases with high morbidity and mortality could be enhanced. Examples include co-morbidities, chronic cardiovascular conditions, infection and (auto)immunity, inflammation and cancer, diabetes and related conditions, rare diseases, degenerative diseases (including their interaction with mental health conditions), the exposome and its impact on human health and disease.

2.  Design, develop, extend, and validate multi-organ, multi-scale, dynamic computational models that accurately simulate a person’s health and disease states, building on current approaches, standards, data repositories, and modelling assets.

3.  Evaluate, select, extend, and validate diverse modelling methodologies, resulting in integrated, advanced, interoperable, patient-specific VHT models that can integrate diverse data sources and methodologies. Methodologies may include biophysics-based modelling, artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI and in-silico modelling, agent-based and network physiology approaches.

4.  Demonstrate integration of these models with other advanced preventive and diagnostic modalities, tools, and techniques enabling integration across pathways.

5.  Generate evidence, including clinical validation, that the solutions deliver clinically meaningful decision support, addressing use case requirements. Document lessons-learned for broader application. Gather evidence via health economic and/or feasibility studies in real-world healthcare settings confirming cost-effectiveness vis-à-vis current practice. Produce an exploitation plan on regulatory compliance and intellectual property.

The call encourages the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and emphasizes the importance of multidisciplinary approaches, end-user focus, and responsible AI development. Proposals should contribute to the objectives of the European VHT Initiative and the Platform for Advanced VHT Models, with project assets made available on the Platform and interoperable with its technical specifications. Collaboration with other EU-funded projects on VHTs and alignment with relevant EU initiatives is expected. The call also requires the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines. Applicants should provide details of their clinical studies in the dedicated annex using the template provided in the submission system.

The call is a HORIZON Research and Innovation Action (HORIZON-RIA) with a budget of 39,300,000 EUR. It is a single-stage call, with the planned opening date on 03 June 2027 and a deadline of 22 September 2027, 17:00:00 Brussels time. The indicative number of grants is 4, with contributions ranging from 10,000,000 to 12,000,000 EUR.

The admissibility conditions, proposal page limits, eligible countries, financial and operational capacity, exclusion criteria, award criteria, scoring, thresholds, submission and evaluation processes, indicative timeline, legal and financial setup, and specific conditions are described in the relevant annexes of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes and the specific topic of the Work Programme. Application and evaluation form templates, guidance documents, and additional documents are available in the Submission System and through the provided links. Partner search announcements are available for those seeking collaboration. Support is available through the Online Manual, Horizon Europe Programme Guide, Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ, Research Enquiry Service, National Contact Points (NCPs), Enterprise Europe Network, IT Helpdesk, European IPR Helpdesk, CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk, ETSI Research Helpdesk, and the European Charter for Researchers.

In summary, this Horizon Europe call seeks to advance the development and implementation of Virtual Human Twins for improved clinical decision support in prevention and diagnosis. It encourages multidisciplinary projects that integrate diverse data sources and modelling methodologies, demonstrate clinical validation, and contribute to the broader European VHT Initiative. The call is targeted towards research and innovation actions that can deliver high-impact solutions in areas of high disease burden, ultimately benefiting healthcare professionals and patients through personalized and integrated prevention and diagnostics tools.

Eligible Applicant Types: The opportunity encourages the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The general annexes of the Horizon Europe Work Programme describe other eligible applicant types. Legal entities established in the United States of America are also eligible to receive Union funding.

Funding Type: The funding type is a grant, specifically a HORIZON Research and Innovation Action (HORIZON-RIA) and HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions (HORIZON-CSA) under the Horizon Europe program. The Type of MGA is HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based [HORIZON-AG].

Consortium Requirement: The opportunity appears to favor a consortium approach, as it encourages multidisciplinary proposals and collaboration with other EU-funded projects. Partner search announcements are available, suggesting that consortia are expected.

Beneficiary Scope (Geographic Eligibility): Eligible countries are described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. Any legal entity established in the United States of America is eligible to receive Union funding.

Target Sector: The target sector is health, specifically focusing on developing and using new tools, technologies, and digital solutions for a healthy society. It targets the development of Virtual Human Twins (VHTs) for integrated clinical decision support in prevention and diagnosis. The specific areas include co-morbidities, chronic cardiovascular conditions, infection and (auto)immunity, inflammation and cancer, diabetes and related conditions, rare diseases, degenerative diseases (including their interaction with mental health conditions), the exposome and its impact on human health and disease.

Mentioned Countries: United States of America.

Project Stage: The project stage is development, validation, and demonstration. The call aims to build on current approaches, standards, data repositories, and modelling assets to design, develop, extend, and validate multi-organ, multi-scale, dynamic computational models. It also requires generating evidence, including clinical validation, and health economic/feasibility studies.

Funding Amount: For HORIZON-HLTH-2027-03-TOOL-02, the budget is 39,300,000 EUR with contributions ranging from 7,000,000 to 10,000,000 EUR, and an indicative number of 4 grants. For HORIZON-HLTH-2027-03-TOOL-04, the budget is 39,300,000 EUR with contributions ranging from 10,000,000 to 12,000,000 EUR, and an indicative number of 4 grants. For HORIZON-HLTH-2027-03-TOOL-08, the budget is 2,900,000 EUR with a contribution of around 2,900,000 EUR, and an indicative number of 1 grant.

Application Type: The application type is an open call with a single-stage submission process.

Nature of Support: Beneficiaries will receive money in the form of a grant.

Application Stages: The application process is a single-stage process.

Success Rates: The success rates cannot be determined from the provided text. However, the indicative number of grants for each topic provides some insight into the competition level.

Co-funding Requirement: The text does not explicitly mention a co-funding requirement.

Summary:

This Horizon Europe call focuses on advancing healthcare through the development and implementation of Virtual Human Twins (VHTs). The goal is to create multi-scale, multi-organ models of individual patients to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases with high morbidity and mortality. The call encourages multidisciplinary approaches, the involvement of SMEs, and collaboration with other EU initiatives. Projects should select specific clinical use cases, build upon existing data and modelling assets, evaluate and validate diverse modelling methodologies (including AI), demonstrate integration with other diagnostic tools, and generate clinical evidence of decision support. The call also emphasizes the importance of social sciences and humanities, ethical considerations, regulatory compliance, and intellectual property. Eligible applicants include entities from EU member states, associated countries, and the United States. The funding is provided through Horizon Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) and Coordination and Support Actions (CSA), with budgets ranging from 2.9 million to 39.3 million EUR per topic. The application process is a single-stage open call with a deadline of September 22, 2027.