The European research partnership for Transforming Health and Care Systems of the Future, co-funded by Horizon Europe, aims to ensure the transition to more sustainable, resilient and high-quality people-centred health and care systems through research and innovation.
European health and care systems face fundamental common challenges that require innovative, harmonised and coordinated solutions. With this in mind, the European Commission has created the European Partnership on Transforming Health and Care Systems (THCS), which represents a unique strategic opportunity to enable the future transformation of our health and care systems.
The THCS partnership is coordinated by the Italian Ministry of Health and comprises 64 partners from 26 countries, mostly represented by national and regional ministries, research and innovation funding agencies and research organisations. In the Basque Country, the Biosistemak Institute (formerly Kronikgune) is part of the consortium together with the Department of Health, and the Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research (BIOEF). Co-funded by Horizon Europe in the EU’s R&D&I framework programme, it has a budget of more than 300 million euros and will run for seven years. THCS is designed to support coordinated national and regional R&D&I funding, capacity building, networking, dissemination and other key activities to support the transformation of health and care systems.
The kick-off meeting of the project, hosted by the Italian Ministry of Health, was held in Rome (Italy) on 13-14 February 2023. In addition to all partners, the event was attended by representatives of the European Commission’s Directorates-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) and for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT), as well as the newly created European Digital and Health Executive Agency (HaDEA). This participation testifies to the strategic importance and EU-added value of this initiative at the European level.
The core activity of THCS is the funding of research and innovation projects through joint transnational calls on common priorities and themes. In parallel, a set of activities will also be promoted to build bridges between science and policy, and support capacity building and implementation in the participating countries. The Department of Health, through BIOEF, is one of the partners that will fund research projects that promote the transition to more sustainable, efficient, resilient and innovative high-quality health and care systems. Its activities will also include acting as technical secretary for the joint translational call, and monitoring and evaluation of the projects. For its part, the Biosistemak Institute (formerly Kronikgune) will be responsible for providing knowledge and tools to define the methodological and evaluation framework and will participate in the creation of the knowledge centre to support the transfer of best European practices.
If you want to know more about the THCS partnership visit its official website: www.thcspartnership.eu/
Follow all activities on social media: twitter.com/THCS_HEU and linkedin.com/in/thcs/.
