What is the HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03 Horizon Europe call?
Opening
10 February 2026
Deadline
Keywords
Cluster health
post-infection long-term conditions
RIA
disease Prevention
disease pathogenesis
clinical decision-making
targeted interventions
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HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03: Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions
The Commission is interested in addressing the post-infection-when-the-patient-is-not-well situation. Long-term conditions of the post-infection are not well diagnosed, understood and we do not have any effective treatment available. This area finances the study of how certain individuals acquire chronic symptoms following microbial infections, and what can be accomplished about it in terms of prevention, as well as, rehabilitation. Think long COVID but not alone: this includes any microorganism.
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Administrative facts: what do we know about the HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03 call?
Which call is it, and when is the opening and the deadline?
- Call: Cluster 1 – Health (Single stage – 2026), identifier HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01
- Destination: Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden
- Topic: HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03
- Opening date: 10 February 2026
- Deadline: 16 April 2026 (17:00:00 Brussels time)
- Type of action: Research and Innovation Action (RIA), lump sum funding
What about the budget and estimated size of the project?
- Total topic budget: EUR 39.30 million
- Number of projects expected to be funded: 5
- Expected EU contribution per project: EUR 6.00 to 8.00 million (roughly EUR 7.86 million if divided evenly)
What are the key eligibility and evaluation conditions?
- Thresholds: 4 (Excellence), 4 (Impact), 4 (Implementation). Cumulative threshold: 12.
- US entities are eligible for EU funding (NIH reciprocity clause).
- Legal entities established in China are not eligible.
- Subject to restrictions for the protection of European communication networks.
- Transfer of ownership or exclusive licensing of results may be blocked up to 4 years after end of action.
- All funded projects expected to participate in networking and joint activities (clustering).
Deadlines of European Programmes 2026/2027
Get the MIC Horizon Europe 2026/2027 Calls Calendar:
-All Horizon Europe deadlines (by cluster and call).
Scientific range: what the Commission expects from the HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03 grant?
The scope is broad on purpose. Any microorganism will do: viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi. Cancer only excludes (Cancer Mission). The Commission is seeking a continuum between knowing the reasons behind the development of post-infection conditions, to diagnosis, to the interventions that reach patients.
Most of the following research tracks should be covered via proposals:
- Determine who is vulnerable and who is not. Genetics, epigenetics, immune reactions, inflammatory pathways.
- Know how they occur, identify biomarkers and validated diagnostic assays to detect or monitor progression.
- Design and experiment prophylactic or curative measures. Drug repurposing is welcome. The expectation, in the case of pharmacological intervention, is phase 1 and phase 2 trials.
- Treatment and social support. Physical therapy, cognitive therapy, psychology. The Commission would like to hear that these methods are effective.
- Healthcare integration. How do you incorporate post-infection care within the primary and specialised environments to ensure that patients do not fall between the departments?
- Sex and gender are a priority flag. Women do not tend to present in the same way and the work programme tells you that. All of that should be considered age, disability, ethnic background, socio-economic status.
- SSH contributions and FAIR data practices consistent with EHDS and EOSC, initial involvement with EMA, and Health Technology Assessment are further topics that need contributions. The use of AI tools and the involvement of SMEs are promoted.
Scientific strategy: How can you enhance your chances of being funded through HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03?
Which scientific decisions are the most important?
- Pick your pathogen wisely. There will be an overrepresentation of long COVID. Good argument in favor of bacterial or parasitic post-infection conditions makes you shine.
- Don’t skip the biomarker work. A proposal that solely does mechanistic biology with a clinically measurable output will score less on Impact.
- There must be a regulatory pathway of clinical trials. Demonstrate that you have considered EMA interactions since the very beginning, and not as an after-thought.
- Playing drug repurposing is a clever game. The history of an average RIA does not allow full de novo development. Repurposing provides you with a plausible date.
- Rehabilitation does not come as an annex. Assign it actual resources and actual clinical endpoints.
- Study design must include sex and gender analysis, but not only in the ethics section (this is where people are taken aback by evaluations).
- Demonstrate complementarity to the existing EU projects. Three past topics are referenced in the work programme. Reference them. describe your process of building on theirs.
Consortium & proposal-writing plan: what works best with this type of Health RIA?
- Aim for 10 to 14 partners. You need mass, not an uncontrollable consortium, with EUR 6 to 8 million in lump sum, and five research tracks.
- EU clinical centres that have patient cohorts in at least four or five countries. Demographic diversity is important because, after infection, the conditions are heterogeneous.
- A new SME with diagnosis or treatment technology provides credibility and a pathway of exploitation. Concepts involving a biotech or medtech SME are more successful in Impact in our experience.
- When you are targeting drug repurposing, you will want to have a pharma partner or clinical pharmacology group with some regulatory experience.
- SSH experts are mandatory. Including medical sociology or health economics.
- Plan work ahead of your budget with lump sum funding. Remain realistic on cost estimates since it is too late when it is signed.
- The clustering provision implies you will have a limited budget line to shared activities with the other four funded projects.
What could microfluidics add to HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03?
Cohorts of patients tell you what occurs in the body. They don’t tell you why. In vivo experimental manipulation of living tissue, on the scale of interaction between immune cells and damaged tissue, that is where microfluidics comes in.
- Suppose you want to know why inflammation remains in the gut lining months after the bacterial infection has been cleared. With a gut-on-chip you can seed the epithelium, add immune cells, add the post-infection signals and observe the response over days. Same configuration, you can experiment whether or not a repurposed anti-inflammatory in fact silences the response.
- Low sample volume biomarker validation. Microfluidic immunoassays also allow you to run panels on microlitre samples, a consideration when paediatrics or frail populations are involved.
- Neurological post-infection symptoms are directly related to organ-on-chip platforms that can be used to model the blood-brain barrier. You open the barrier to post-infection serum, permeability.
- Accelerating repurposing screening of drugs. Over hundreds of conditions can be performed on human tissue models with a microfluidic platform. You achieve similar outcomes, you transition to the clinical trial more quickly.
Why should microfluidics form part of your HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03 proposal? Because it provides you with data in a mechanistic form that cohort studies would not have been able to generate, at a timeline and cost that fits within an RIA budget. That linkage between your chip information and your clinical endpoints is the thing that you convince those who do the reviewing that the technology is benefiting the science.
The MIC already brings its expertise in microfluidics to Horizon Europe:
H2020-NMBP-TR-IND-2020
Microfluidic platform to study the interaction of cancer cells with lymphatic tissue
H2020-LC-GD-2020-3
Toxicology assessment of pharmaceutical products on a placenta-on-chip model
FAQ - HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03
So what is it that this call is all about?
The target audience of this call is the population that overcomes infections yet is not fully recovered- persistent fatigue, dysfunctional organs, cognitive difficulties, immune dysregulation that persists months or years after the pathogen has been eliminated. It is not only the ability to describe such conditions but also the opportunity to understand the mechanisms, define who is vulnerable, create diagnostics, which are applicable in medical practice, and develop interventions that can better the outcomes. Consider post-viral syndromes, chronic complications of bacteria. It is regarding the conversion of descriptive medicine into actionable medicine in long-term conditions, in the post-infection period.
Who is supposed to apply and how much money is available?
The most powerful consortia are three-world bridges: bench scientists with the ability to dissect mechanisms (immunologists, systems biologists), clinical teams with patient cohorts and the ability to follow them longitudinally, and implementation experts (health economists, guideline developers). Patient organizations should be included from the beginning. EUR6-8 million is allocated to individual projects (36-48 months) on average. A EUR39.3 million envelope is going to fund approximately five projects. Deadline is April 16, 2026. They are Research and Innovation Actions that are aimed at creation of knowledge that has clear implementation routes.
What are the infections that are in scope?
Intentional wide – any microorganism that causes persistent conditions despite resolution of acute phase. Viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi. Pathogens with an estimated high impact on society and the healthcare system will be of importance.
Which four outcomes are the evaluators really seeking?
To begin with, better knowledge of pathophysiology and mechanisms, including proven risk factors and treatment sites. Second, new diagnostic features -biomarkers that are reliably measured, assays that are effective in the clinical environment, decision-making stratification tools. Third, the enhanced characterization of the disease with clinically meaningful subtypes and the means of identifying population at risk. Fourth, results leading to better prevention and management guidelines, proving to cut down patient load and burden on the healthcare. When you are a great mechanism person with a poor clinical translation, or the reverse, you are not competitive. Address all four credibly.
In what way ought we to arrange the scientific work intelligently?
-Stratification is not an add-on; it should become a key goal. Clearly define how to delineate subtypes based on biological processes or clinical development and progression, and demonstrate the impact of stratification on the pathway of care.
-Be precise regarding biomarkers, not: we will determine markers, but rather: the specifics of the specimens you will collect, and when and with which platforms you will accomplish this, on a validated outcome against what decision.
-Demonstrate an effectively clear line: multi-omics data – biological pathways – actionable targets – diagnostic or therapeutic prototypes.
-Write results-first, lead with so what (new diagnostic capability, subgroup identification, prevention evidence), and then write the methodology. Skimmer evaluators bring out the logic at the outset.
What is the microfluidics value-added in this case?
There are four contributions in concrete.
To begin with, sensitive biomarkers assays -microfluidic sample preparation and multiplexed detection of low-abundance inflammatory or metabolic biomarkers using small volumes, essential in longitudinal patient sampling.
Second, droplet or chip-based immunophenotyping of a single cell type profiles the dynamics of cells related to enduring symptoms and sorts high-risk populations at impossible-with-bulk-methods scale.
Third, organ-on-chip and infection-on-chip models offer controlled microphysiologic systems studies of persistence, immune dysregulation, vascular involvement, host-microbiome interactions, connecting mechanism to target.
Fourth, point-of-care prototyping allows the creation of decentralized diagnostics that can be used at the primary care or at a remote location. This deals with the backbone of the biomarker-mechanism-stratification of calls.
What is the true competition of a consortium?
-Relevance to patients should be clear and integrated, and convincing when patient organizations collaborate to design participation from design through dissemination.
-Addition of specialized SMEs to enhance the development of diagnostics, data analytics platform, industrialization of assays, or pathways to exploitation-relevant and not pitched by the product.
-Show how work will have an impact on clinical guidelines or healthcare pathways, and not undefined translation assurances.
-Demonstrate the entire bench-to-bedside arc with mechanisms that guide clinical work and clinical observations to be the impetus behind mechanistic questions.
-Risk management of project-specific scientific and implementation issues, and not boilerplate.
-Roadmap with timeline gates enabling you to kill deadlines and bet on successes.
What is strictly in and out of scope?
-In scope: long-term diseases of any microorganism (viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi) that remains after disease that initially occurred is removed. The costs are that of delayed recovery, continued damage, aggravation of existing disease, heterogeneous symptoms that involve more than one organ system.
-The areas of research are biomarkers, developing diagnostic methods, targeted interventions, host (genetic, epigenetic, immune response, viral persistence, microbiome dysbiosis) factors, pathogen-host interactions, multi-omics pathway discovery, disease progression and subtype features.
-Out of scope theoretical work that has not yet been validated, proposals that lack the implementation courses to healthcare systems.
What are the pitfalls that usually destroy Health RIA proposals?
-The discovery of biomarkers without severe validation, performance of analysis or plan to use it in clinical applications.
-Stunning multi-omics and no description of the way results are used to make decisions. Lacking or only generally formulated risk management instead of problem-solving project-related challenges.
-Consortia lacking implementation knowledge, or clinical and mechanistic depth.
-Performative, not integrated, patient involvement.
-Losing the health economics logic or guideline pathway logic, which relates research to real-life healthcare change.
-Buzzy words without actual goals and realistic steps of improvement.
What do timelines and milestones show in terms of credibility?
Plan work packages based on the four categories of outcomes (mechanisms, risk stratification, diagnostics, management evidence) instead of the customary disciplines. Apply decision gates where the management process is flexible- cancel weak and reinforce winners. The initial milestones define reproducible practices and test major assumptions. Mid-term measures involve the diagnostics of prototypes or interventions in the pertinent populations. The late-stage milestones provide evidence packages that can be used by the guideline developers or by regulators. Present quarterly review points wherein consortium will indicate whether a particular scientific line is progressing as per the criteria. The alignment of the budget to concrete milestones in risk reduction can be easily read, that you know how to produce interesting data as opposed to producing implementable knowledge altering clinical practice.