The Third EU Health Programme (2014-2020) with a budget of € 449.4 million is the main instrument that the European Commission uses to implement the EU Health Strategy. This programme is about fostering health in Europe by encouraging cooperation between Member States to improve the health policies that benefit their citizens and to support and complement Member States health initiatives.

What is a Joint Action?

It is a collaborative action with as many as possible key players from Member States to develop, share, refine,  test tools, methods and approaches to specific issues or activities, and engage in capacity building in key areas of interest. They are co-financed by the European Commission and authorities of the Member States.

Joint Actions’ proposals should provide a genuine European dimension in order to make sense both technically and in terms of policy. Depending on the scope of the action previous Joint Actions involved on average 25 partners.

Topics of actions

• JA-01-2015 Health Technology Assessment cooperation (€12 M EU co-funding)

• JA-02-2015 Prevention of Frailty (€3,5 M EU co-funding)

• JA-03-2015 Market surveillance of medical devices (€ 850.000 EU co-funding)

• JA-04-2015 Rare cancer (€1,5 M EU co-funding)

Who can participate?

Country eligibility: the organisation needs to be legally established in one of the 28 EU member states or an EFTA country party to European Economic Area (Iceland, or Norway).

Type of organization: Public sector bodies and non-governmental bodies from the above countries can participate in Joint Actions, if they are mandated by competent authorities through a transparent procedure.

General principles

- Co-financing rule: you need to have your own financial resources or financial resources of third parties to contribute to the costs of the project.

- Non-profit rule: the grant may not have the purpose or effect of producing a profit for your organization.

- Non-retroactivity rule: you can get co-funding only for the costs incurred after the star­ting date stipulated in the grant agreement.

- Non-cumulative rule: each action may give rise to the award of only one grant to any one bene­ficiary (you cannot get paid twice for the same cost).

How much co-funding?

The EU contribution is 60% of the total eligible cost, in cases of exceptional utility may be up to 80%. At least 40% of project costs must be funded from partners' sources.

How to participate?

Joint actions are co-funded through a direct grant procedure (no open call is published). That means that partners have to be preliminary nominated in order for the official proposal preparation process to start.

The completion and submission of the nomination forms will be done through a web based tool. Then, each nomination needs to be formally notified to the Consumer, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (Chafea), the agency which implements the actions.

Please note that the notification procedure is the same either you wish to participate as Coordinator or as active partner. If you are interested in participating, please contact us at ajuts@vhir.org to initiate the nomination procedure.

Deadline

VHIR internal deadline: August 28th, 2015

Official deadline: September 4th, 2015

Find further information: HERE