Horizon Europe Cluster 1 - Health
Work Programme 2025
Writer
Celeste Chidiac, PhD
Keywords
Microfluidic Devices, Intelligent Microfluidics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
EIC Work Programme reference
HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01
Deadline
September 16th, 2025
Keywords
Intelligent Microfluidics
Deep Learning
Microfluidic Devices
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Mental health
Data-driven tools
Environmental health
Healthcare systems
Digital solutions
Healthy society
The MIC can be your perfect SME partner for EIC projects!
Introduction to Horizon Europe Cluster 1 - Health 2025
This month, the European Commission officially launched the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025. It builds on insights from a comprehensive review of the programme’s first phase (2021–2024), identifying funding gaps, emerging research priorities, and evolving societal challenges. On this page, we will give an overview of the core topics of Cluster 1 – Health. It aligns closely with the European Commission’s political guidelines for 2024–2029, with a focus on strengthening healthcare resilience, harnessing biotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI), and addressing urgent public health needs.
Horizon Europe’s Cluster Health is committed to driving research and innovation that improve public health outcomes, enhance healthcare systems, and foster more resilient, inclusive, and equitable societies across Europe. Its overarching goal is to elevate quality of life by supporting cutting-edge solutions that span the full healthcare spectrum—from disease prevention and health promotion to diagnostics, treatment, and care delivery.
To achieve this, the Cluster promotes collaboration among researchers, healthcare professionals, patients, industry experts, as well as citizen engagement, and international cooperation, ensuring that research outcomes are relevant, impactful, and widely adopted.
The 2025 calls for proposals will emphasize the growing interconnection between environmental and human health. The Cluster supports projects investigating how factors such as pollution and climate change contribute to health risks, including the impact of micro- and nanoplastics on brain health. At the same time, digital technologies and AI will be central to modernizing healthcare, focusing on disease prediction, prevention, and personalized care through data-driven tools.
The programme encourages collaboration with other EU initiatives like EU4Health, the Digital Europe Programme, and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to ensure effective translation of research into practice. It also stresses the importance of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles and compliance with the EU Clinical Trials Regulation to uphold data integrity, safety, and scientific standards.
The program also supports Horizon Europe’s three Key Strategic Orientations: “The Green Transition”, “The Digital Transition”, and “A More Resilient, Competitive, Inclusive, and Democratic Europe”.
How can the MIC contribute to Cluster Health?
- Simulation of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and brain tissues to study how pollutants affect neurological development and disease progression.
- Precise modeling of long-term exposure in controlled environments, mimicking realistic exposure conditions over time.
- Simulating human epithelial barriers (gut, lung, skin) to test micro/ nanoplastics uptake and toxicity through inhalation, ingestion, or dermal contact.
- Rapid diagnostics for identifying bacterial strains and matching effective phages in personalized treatments.
- Precise control and monitoring of cell cultures to optimize secretome production.
Microfluidics can be particularly useful in the following calls of Cluster Health:
| Call | HORIZON-HLTH-2025-03-ENVHLTH-01-two-stage | HORIZON-HLTH-2025-03-ENVHLTH-02-two-stage | HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-DISEASE-01 | HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-TOOL-02 | HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-IND-01 |
| Destination | Living and working in a health-promoting environment Deadline Stage 1: 16th Sept. 2025 Stage 2: 16th Apr. 2026 | Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden Deadline: 16th Sept. 2025 | New tools, technologies, and digital solutions for a healthy society Deadline: 16th Sept. 2025 | Innovative, sustainable, competitive EU health industry Deadline: 16th Sept. 2025 | |
| Call Title | The impact of pollution on the development and progression of brain diseases and disorders | Advancing knowledge on the impacts of micro- and nanoplastics on human health | Testing safety and efficacy of phage therapy for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections | Advancing cell secretome-based therapies | Optimising the manufacturing of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) |
| Type of Action | RIA* | IA** | |||
| Budget | €40M | €45M | €40M | ||
| Budget/ project | €6-8M | ~€15M | €9-13M | €6-8M | |
| Number of Projects | 5-7 | 3 | 5 | ||
| Objective | Understand environmental pollution’s effect on brain health | Advance knowledge on MNPs and support mitigation strategies | Combat AMR with phage therapy | Develop and translate secretome therapies | Improve scalability and cost-effectiveness of ATMP production |
| Scope | Environments, vulnerable groups, exposome, disease mechanisms, long-term effects | Analytical methods, toxicity, long-term effects, real samples, exposure routes, standardization | Clinical trials, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, safety and efficacy studies | Secretome characterization, delivery, preclinical/clinical trials, biomarker development | Process optimization, digitization, automation, standardization, quality, regulation |
| Key Features | Two-stage; SSH, FAIR data, cluster coordination, lump sum | Two-stage; SSH, FAIR data, realistic samples, reference materials | Single-stage; emphasis on clinical trials, regulatory alignment, real-world impact | Single-stage; focus on scaling production, safety, and early clinical validation | Single-stage; industrial focus, digital integration, regulatory compliance |
*Research and Innovation Actions with 100% funding
**Innovation Actions with 70% funding
Destinations of Horizon Europe Cluster Health
Cluster 1 – Health is organized around six “Destinations,” representing the research’s expected impacts.
- Staying healthy in a rapidly changing society: Promotes healthier lifestyles, environments, and behaviors to help people of all ages remain healthy and independent amid societal changes.
- Living and working in a health-promoting environment: Focuses on creating sustainable, health-supportive environments by understanding environmental, social, and economic determinants of health.
- Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden: Aims to improve disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and management to reduce the burden on patients and healthcare systems.
- Ensuring equal access to innovative, sustainable, and high-quality healthcare: Seeks to make healthcare systems more equitable and resilient through people-centred, cost-effective innovations and policies.
- Developing and using new tools, technologies, and digital solutions for a healthy society: Supports the safe, ethical, and effective integration of digital tools and technologies into healthcare systems and policies.
- Maintaining an innovative, sustainable, and competitive EU health industry: Strengthens the EU health industry’s global competitiveness by promoting innovation and reducing reliance on imported health technologies.
Focus areas of Cluster Health
- Social cohesion and modernisation: The program prioritizes social cohesion, inclusion, health, and well-being of Europeans, supporting the European Pillar of Social Rights. It aims to modernize healthcare systems and support an innovative, sustainable, and competitive health industry.
- Environmental health: The program addresses the health impacts of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, aligning with the European Green Deal and the EU Climate Adaptation Strategy.
- Mental health and aging: It highlights the need for investments in mental health and addressing the challenges of an aging population and non-communicable diseases.
- Healthcare systems: The program aims to strengthen healthcare resilience, promote sustainability, reduce health inequities, and advance medical device manufacturing in line with EU industrial and single market goals.
- Digital health and data use: It will advance healthcare by promoting biotechnology and AI, focusing on cellular and cell-free therapies, generative AI in biomedical research, and facilitating the transition from pre-clinical to clinical applications.
Download the MIC Horizon Europe 2025 Calls Calendar:
We are also happy to join your research consortium as an SME partner for other topics. Calls that we are particularly interested in are:
