IHI call 11 has a total budget of EUR 120 million; EUR 57 million comes from the EU’s Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation, EUR 48 million comes from IHI’s industry members, and EUR 15 million comes from IHI contributing partners.
“The topics in this call were shaped with input from both industry partners and the major philanthropic organisations that have joined the call as IHI contributing partners,” said IHI Executive Director Niklas Blomberg. “These philanthropic organisations have strong links to civil society and patient communities, and their involvement in the call highlights IHI’s ability to mobilise broad coalitions aligned around clear, strategic goals.”
The topics are:
A platform to unravel brain dysfunction beyond classical disease boundaries
A number of very different diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, major depressive disorder, and obesity, share, in subsets of affected people, common symptoms involving the brain’s mechanisms of reward / motivation and impulsivity. Although they currently receive a different diagnosis, the underlying biological drivers of disease in people with these symptoms could be similar. The aim of this topic is to establish a collaborative data platform for understanding the common biological bases of these symptoms and identifying biomarkers as well as tools to measure how they change in clinical trials. This could ultimately contribute to a change in the way these disorders are diagnosed and the development of better treatments to help people living with them.
Understanding the links between infections and non-communicable diseases
A wide range of diseases, including neurodegenerative, cardiometabolic and auto-immune diseases as well as some cancers are known or suspected to be linked to viral infections. The aim of this topic is to explore precisely how viruses trigger non-communicable diseases and identify biomarkers that could help to identify people at risk of developing a non-communicable disease following infection with a virus. The topic focuses in particular on neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases) and cardiometabolic diseases (such as coronary artery disease). In the long term, this could help to advance efforts to prevent and treat these diseases.
Using AI to pick up safety signals
Pharmacovigilance refers to the detection and analysis of potential side effects of a medicine once it has been approved for use. Currently, spontaneous reporting systems and, to a lesser degree, electronic health records are the main sources of ‘safety signals’, but are these systems can be slow and inefficient. The aim of this topic is to assess how artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to detect safety signals faster and with greater accuracy by analysing diverse and untapped data sources. This would contribute to the better patient safety.
En route to a cure for type 1 diabetes
Some 2.5 million people in Europe live with type 1 diabetes (T1D), an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the beta cells in the pancreas that make the hormone insulin. Insulin controls our blood sugar levels, and people with T1D have to constantly monitor their blood sugar levels and regularly inject themselves with insulin to manage their condition. This has a huge impact on patients’ daily lives, work, education, and mental health. Beta cell therapy offers the hope of a cure for type 1 diabetes, but challenges hamper its wider use. The aim of this topic is to accelerate the development of beta cell therapies for diabetes and their integration into care.
Setting up ambulatory surgical centres in Europe
Ambulatory surgical centres (ASCs) provide same-day surgical care for patients who do not need an overnight stay in hospital. As such, they offer patients the prospect of more convenient care, a lower risk of hospital-acquired infections, and the opportunity to recover in their own homes. For healthcare systems, they could lower costs significantly. This topic aims to deliver the resources, training material and frameworks needed to establish ASCs in two areas: orthopaedic joint (knee and hip) replacement, and cardiac ablation (a treatment for irregular heartbeats).
Deadline
The deadline for submitting short proposals for the call is 9 October 2025.
ENDS
Notes to editors
Details of the topics and how to apply can be found on the IHI website
IHI is holding online info sessions on the call topics and IHI’s rules and procedures from 23 to 30 June. Registration is free but obligatory.
Note that applicants from the following countries are not eligible to receive funding for some or all of the topics in this call. More information on this can be found on the call web page.
- UK and Canada: Legal entities are eligible to receive funding under topic 1, but not eligible to receive funding under topics 2 to 5.
- Switzerland and South Korea: Legal entities are not eligible to receive funding under any of the topics in this call.
Read our comment piece on the strategic contributions of philanthropic organisations to the IHI call 11 topics.
