The EU Commission to provide funding to assist Member States mainstream health promotion and disease prevention in health and educational settings.

TH – 02/2017

The EU’s founding treaty requires it to take into consideration the protection of its citizens’ health in all policy areas and, together with the EU countries, improve public health, prevent diseases and limit the sources of threats to physical and psychological health.

The EU health strategy “Together for Health” supports the overall Europe 2020 strategy. The aim of Europe 2020 is to achieve an intelligent, sustainable and inclusive economy that promotes growth for everyone. One of the fundamental prerequisites for this is a healthy population. The third EU Health Programme is the European Commission’s main instrument for implementing the EU health strategy.

The key objectives of the Programme are:

promote health, prevent diseases and encourage supportive environments for a healthy lifestyle while taking into account the principle of “health in all policies”;
protect citizens from serious cross-border health threats;
contribute to innovative, efficient and sustainable health systems;
facilitate access to better and safer healthcare for all EU citizens.

The Health Programme is not part of the Horizon 2020 programme and is therefore subject to its own rules on eligibility and reimbursement of expenses.

The programme is based on the concept of co-financing. Generally speaking, the EU will reimburse expenses up to a maximum of 60%. The remaining co-payment of 40% of eligible project costs is generally provided by public bodies through pro rata use and billing of staff who are not externally funded by third parties.

Work Programme 2017

Implementation of the third EU Health Programme is done with the assistance of annual work programmes which specify priority areas and the criteria for actions to be funded. The Work Programme 2017 was adopted by the EU Commission on 26 January 2017.

The funds set aside for 2017 are allocated to four action areas as follows:

for grants: EUR 38,850,000
for prizes: EUR 60,000
for procurement: EUR 14,341,585
for other actions: EUR 7,152,500

Thus, the total amount available for 2017 is EUR 60,404,085.

Proposals can be submitted soon.

Based on the adopted Work Programme, the calls for proposals for 2017 will be published on the CHAFEA website in due course (expected mid-February)

More on the adoption of the Work Programme can be found at:

http://ec.europa.eu/health/programme/events/adoption_workplan_2017_en

The full list of annexes which explain how, and under which conditions, funding is granted can be found at:

https://ec.europa.eu/health/sites/health/files/programme/docs/wp2017_annex_en.pdf