Research, Innovation and Technology Call for Proposals (RITC) 2026

Call Documents

Depending on the country of origin, additional documents may be required:

Belgium (FIO VLAIO)

Additional documents to be sent via the regional submission platform (E-Tool). Documents required for submission at VLAIO available at: https://www.vlaio.be/nl/media/1488 (ENG) or https://www.vlaio.be/nl/media/1490 (NL)

Belgium (SPW-EER)
Additional documents to be sent via the regional submission platform.

Czech Republic (MZCR/AZVCR)
Additional national documents (to be submitted by the same deadline established in the joint transnational call: Conditions for Czech applicants (PDF) .

Ireland (HRB)
In order to be eligible to apply for funding, institutions must be an approved HRB Host Institution no later than two calendar months before the closing date of a call. See also the Policy on Approval of HRB Host Institutions. New applicants to HRB for JTCs must submit a short form at submission to provide details on PI’s track record for eligibility checks. A letter of support will be required at submission stage for any Lead Applicants who do not have a permanent post at a HRB Host Institution. Please refer to the guidance on the HRB scheme page for further information. At full proposal stage, applicants must complete HRB’s Budget and Deliverables templates. These will be provided after invitation to submit a full proposal.

Israel (CSO-MOH)
National additional document (to be sent to CSO-MOH before the JTC submission deadline, instructions (DOCX)).

Italy (IT-MoH)
Pre-eligibility check form for IT-MoH proposals (PDF) (to be sent to IT-MoH at least 10 working days before the JTC submission deadline).

South Africa (SAMRC)
Additional Partnership criteria applies to this call and requires you to complete the pre-eligibility check form.

Spain (CFN)
Additional document for CFN proposals (DOC) (to be sent to CFN in parallel to the pre-proposal submission).

Aims of the Call

This call aims to bring together enterprises with clinical actors, including healthcare providers, patients, and researchers, to test innovative solutions in controlled real-world settings to address clear needs in managing multimorbidity.

EP PerMed will fund innovation projects in human health that focus on multimodal data usage for PM approaches providing more efficient and personalised management of patients with multimorbidity, having at least two chronic diseases that require management.

Projects will address one or more of the following aspects:

• Detection or characterisation of co-morbidities in chronically ill patients;
• Diagnosis, follow-up or monitoring of disease progression, including remissions and relapses;
• Promoting a shift from in-patient to out-patient care through remote monitoring or reporting using wearables or other technical solutions;
• Decision support for disease intervention strategies (e.g., medication type and dosage);
• Tracking and managing multiple treatments (including drug combinations) to improve effectiveness or reduce adverse effects and potential harmful drug interactions;
• Adherence to long-term treatment regimens.

While clinical studies (exploratory/proof-of-concept/early stage clinical studies or sub-studies) can be funded in this call, larger clinical trials are out of scope.

Funded projects are required to test and further develop solutions in controlled real-world environments. They must clearly describe a robust strategy for the collection, processing, and usage of multi-modal health data. Projects should also adopt a holistic system approach by integrating six enabling elements to facilitate future implementation of the solutions.

The testing environments

Funded projects are required to test and further develop innovative solutions in controlled real-world environments such as, but not limited to:

• Hospital-based test environment
• Out-patient care environments
• Simulated clinical environments
• Virtual test environments

Projects should clearly describe the chosen test environment in their proposal, including its level of complexity, relevance to the intended use case, and readiness for implementation.

Innovations

Solutions being tested should at least have reached the technology readiness level (TRL) 3 which in the current call is considered as successful proof-of-concept on relevant biological systems or clinical data. See eligibility and evaluation criteria in section 8 and Annex III of the call text for support when defining the developmental stage of the solution in the proposal.

Data Strategy

Proposals must present a comprehensive strategy detailing how the project aligns with the call scope in the collection, processing, and use of multimodal health data. This strategy must include the following aspects: data collection, data processing, and data usage.

The enabling elements

This call promotes a holistic systems approach, emphasising the integration of six enabling elements. These elements are designed to lower the threshold for future implementation of innovative solutions into routine clinical practice. Proposals should include a clear description of how the projects align with, and integrate, each of the following enabling elements (further information is provided in the “Guidelines for Applicants”):

• Knowledge integration
• Technologies, products, methods and processes
• Infrastructure utilisation
• Business/value model
• Policies and regulations
• Organisation, behaviour and values

Applicants are strongly encouraged to integrate sex and gender considerations, as well as underrepresented populations (e.g. ethnic minorities), or underrepresented patient sub-groups, e.g. children or elderly, as well as social components, e.g. different economic, educational backgrounds, in proposals submitted to the EP PerMed call.

Participatory research should be established in that active representation of patients or citizens is part of research projects. EP PerMed is supporting this approach by providing dedicated funding to organisations representing patients or citizens to participate as partners in proposals submitted to this call. Those organisations could support in designing the research, ensuring that research questions are relevant from the patients’ and citizens’ point of view. They might also support in collecting data for PROs and adverse effects.

Please refer to the Call Text of the RITC2026 for further information and definitions.

General (Eligibility) Conditions for Application

Joint research proposals may be submitted by applicants belonging to an entity according to the following categories (subject to regional/national funding regulations; see “Guidelines for Applicants”):

1. Enterprise (for-profit) of all sizes, e.g. SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) and industry.
2. Clinical partner, public or private health sectorrepresented by research teams or clinicians (e.g. medical doctors, nurses or pharmacists) working in hospitals/public health or other healthcare settings and health organisations).
3. Academia, research teams working in universities, other higher education institutions or public or private research institutes.
4. Private non-profit partners, e.g. foundations, associations or non-governmental organisations.

Consortia submitting applications to this call must include partners from categories A) and B), and are strongly encouraged to also include partners from categories C) and D).

Only transnational projects will be funded. Each consortium must involve at least three partners from three different EU Member States or Associated Countries whose funding organisations participate in the call. Each of these partners must be eligible and request funding from the respective funding organisation. All three legal entities must be independent of each other.

At least one project partner must represent an enterprise (SME or industry), and at least one additional partner must be a clinical partner, adhering to categories A and B (more indications in the Call Text section 7 “B. Funding recipients”).

The project coordinator (i.e. the principal investigator and the applicant’s organisation) must be eligible to be funded by their regional/national participating funding organisation. The project coordinator (i.e. the principal investigator and applicant’s organisation) cannot be changed during the application process.

In both, the pre- and full proposal stage, no more than three partners from the same country, including partners on own funding, is allowed. Note that for some funding organisations, the maximum number of eligible partners who can be funded in one project is limited and may be fewer than three (see also “Guidelines for Applicants” for individual funding regulations).

In the pre-proposal phase, the maximum number of partners is seven.

Widening concept: Consortia are allowed to include in the full proposal phase an additional project partner that is eligible to receive funding from a funding organisation that is underrepresented in the second stage of the call and that agrees to participate in the widening option (a list of underrepresented regions/countries will be provided to coordinators invited to submit full proposals).

No more than two partners on own funds is allowed (partners on own funds must be additional to the minimum three partners eligible and requesting funding; more indications in the Call Text: section 7 “B. Funding recipients”).

Exception: To facilitate the integration of organisations representing patients or citizens in consortia, they can be added as additional partners at the pre-proposal stage or full proposal stage either on own funds or by applying for funding, if eligible, from EP PerMed (see page 10) or the respective funding organisations. The consortia must follow all above-mentioned rules regarding the consortia composition but without counting the patient/citizen representing organisations. The following rule must be respected: Within one consortium, no more than three partners can request funding from the same funding organisation, including patient/citizen organisations. For some funding organisations, the maximum number of eligible partners who can be funded in one project is limited and maybe fewer than three.

If a partner is found to be ineligible by one of the funding organisations after the formal check, the entire proposal may be rejected without further review. For a definition of eligible partners, see “Guidelines for Applicants”, the regional/national regulations, and contact the concerned regional/national funding organisation.

A maximum project duration of 3 years may be applied for.