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

Need advice for your intelligent microfluidic system?

Your microfluidic SME partner for Horizon Europe!

At a glance

What are the focus areas for Cluster 1 – Health?

Promoting social cohesion, health, and well-being of Europeans
Managing environmental and climate-related health risks
Addressing mental health, aging, and non-communicable diseases
Strengthening healthcare resilience and sustainability across the EU
Advancing digital health & generative AI in biomedical research

What can the MIC offer as your partner?

-Microfluidics expertise:

Organ-on-chip models to study tissue responses and disease mechanisms
Controlled exposure systems for simulating long-term environmental impacts
Barrier tissue modeling for testing substance absorption and toxicity
Rapid diagnostic for pathogen detection and personalized treatment support
Precision cell culture control for enhancing therapeutic molecule production

-Partnership opportunities:

Technical contribution to proposals
Integration of microfluidic systems into your project
Access to prototyping and validation platforms

Experience with EU-funded consortia

Discover more!

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 the quality of life by supporting cutting-edge solutions that span the full spectrum of healthcare, 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, such as EU4Health, the Digital Europe Programme, and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), to ensure the 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?

At the MIC, we develop microfluidic setups tailored to individual projects’ needs. For Cluster Health, these revolve around systems capable of mimicking microphysiological conditions used for the modelling of the environmental impact on human cells and tissues.

Examples include:

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 HORIZON-HLTH-2025:

Call	03-ENVHLTH-01-two-stage	03-ENVHLTH-02-two-stage	01-DISEASE-01	01-TOOL-02	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)
Action Type	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 of 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.