• Many questions and answers are by now listed in the “Topics Q&A” section of the Funding and Tenders Portal for each call topic -perhaps there are also questions relevant to you! For example, here is a link to a topic, then jump to Topics Q&A
• In addition, the Health NCP Net has listed all the questions per topic that were asked at the Health Open Info Day in May, with the appropriate time in the video where it was answered

Which countries receive funding? Update and reminder:

• UK - has been associated to Horizon Europe since 1.1.2024. Project partners participate as “Beneficiaries” and receive funding.
• USA - only in Cluster Health exception, receive funding due to an agreement with the NIH!
• Switzerland: Association agreement to be signed in November 2025, but Switzerland may retroactively participate in all calls since 1.1.25 => include in your project as a normal beneficiary. More info here
• Update on other countries that have recently joined Horizon Europe and are therefore allowed to participate as beneficiaries, receive funding and meet the minimum conditions: Canada, New Zealand, Egypt, South Korea, Morocco 

"Proposal Check" service - by appointment only

The NCP FFG offers to carry out a written "Proposal Check" for you before the deadline, with a focus on Austrian coordinaters – “proposal check” means a detailed written commentary on your proposal, directly in the text, and pointing out potential weaknesses - you only need to send us the proposal, but they need to plan their resources (checking a full proposal takes at least ½ day, checking a short proposal with blind evaluation takes at least 2 hours). If you have not already done so, please let them know as soon as possible whether you would like to use this option and, if so, when you would like to send us your application (preferred date plus indication of whether morning or afternoon).

All information about project submissions will be treated with absolute confidentiality and will not be passed on to third parties or other submitters. If required, you can also send us the application via a secure server.

Contact:

• Astrid Hoebertz (astrid.hoebertz@ffg.at)
• Ines Haberl (Ines.Haberl@ffg.at)

Cluster Health - Single Stage

Proposaltemplates:

• Always use the most recent templates, not old ones from previous submissions, the latest version is available in the Submission Portal! The NCP FFG has created a fact sheet on the latest important changes: 
• https://www.ffg.at/sites/default/files/allgemeine_downloads/europaeische_und_internationale_programme/programmdokumente/FactSheet_ChangesProposaltemplates2025_BF_FINAL.pdf
• Annotated Proposal template: The NCP Germany has developed a very helpful “Kommentiertes Antragsformular für Forschungs- und Innovationsmaßnahmen (RIA) sowie Innovationsmaßnahmen (IA) in Horizon Europe“. It guides you through Part A and Part B of your proposal and gives helpful comments in the Health context!

Impact Canvas Tool

The network of health NCPs has developed an Impact Canvas tool that is very helpful for the impact chapter, Part 2.3 (Summary Table)! It contains tips on how to integrate the key elements of the impact section into the table. The examples provided are all related to Health, with some taken from real proposals. 

Lump Sum Funding

• Have you checked whether your topic works with lump sum funding, yes or no? This can be seen in the F&T portal under: Type of MGA => “Horizon Lump Sum Grant” or “HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based.” If lump sum, please familiarize yourself with the requirements: https://www.ffg.at/europa/heu/recht-finanzen/thema_lumpsum
• IF (!) you have a call with Lump Sum Funding, there is a new Q&A Document by Health NCPs on Lump Sum Funding, for examples with questions on clinical trials.  

Length Part B

There is a strict page limit of 45 pages for RIAs/IA, or 50 pages for Lump Sum proposals. Any pages exceeding this limit will not be read or will be made invisible. No further annexes are permitted apart from the Clinical Trial Annex and Optional Ethical Annexes, and Lump Sum Budgetsheet, if applicable. This means, nothing else can be uploaded (i.e. no annexes with CVs, letters of support, or similar)! The short length of the template continues to pose a challenge in terms of describing all aspects adequately.

For all proposals involving clinical trials, please note that the Clinical Studies Annex is not subject to any page limit, so you can use all the space here, and refer to it in Part B. 

Clinical Studies Annex

There is always some confusion as to whether this annex is mandatory, and in which cases it should be used. The definition of clinical studies in the context of Horizon Europe is very broad and actually covers all scenarios in which you use or analyse human clinical data and material, even retrospectively, see first footnote in the annex:

“Clinical study covers clinical studies/trials/investigations/cohorts and means, for the purpose of this document, any systematic prospective or retrospective collection and analysis of health data obtained from individual patients or healthy persons in order to address scientific questions related to the understanding, prevention, diagnosis, monitoring or treatment of a disease, mental illness, or physical condition. It includes but it is not limited to clinical trials as defined by Regulation 536/2014 (on medicinal products), clinical investigation and clinical evaluation as defined by Regulation 2017/745 (on medical devices), performance study and performance evaluation as defined by Regulation 2017/746 (on in vitro diagnostic medical devices).” 

For all research topics, the last sentence in the call for proposals text reads “Applicants should provide details of their clinical studies in the dedicated annex using the template provided in the submission system”. (plus sometimes: “As proposals under this topic are expected to include clinical studies, the use of the template is strongly encouraged”) => this means that for almost all of you, the annex is stored as a template in the submission portal and can be uploaded, and I recommend that you do so and use it. Only fill out those parts of the annex that apply to you! For any sections that are not relevant, simply explain why they do not apply in your case. The network of Health NCPs has developed an annotated annex with further explanations: https://www.healthncp.net/pdf/annotated-template-information-clinical-studies-applicants

Ethical Annex 

Can be uploaded optionally if you need additional space for your ethical aspects and the space in Part A of the Ethical Self-Assessment is not sufficient.

Lessons Learned from previous evaluations, Briefing of evaluators

The NCP FFG has analysed ESRs (Evaluation Summary Reports) from Austrian coordinators from previous calls, and have compiled (anonymized) comments: see here. It clearly shows the frequently seen weaknesses in proposals and what evaluators are looking at. You will often see “not detailed enough,” “missing info,” etc. It is difficult to write all required information on 45 (50 Lump Sum) pages, so avoid redundancies, use tables (where you can also reduce the font size), and for applications with clinical studies/data, use the Clinical studies annex, which has no page limit, for all relevant information.

In this context, it is also helpful to know how your proposals are evaluated: check out the briefing slides for evaluators and the short “How to...” videos for evaluators are also very insightful (“How to evaluate: Open Sciences - Social Sciences and Humanities – Strategy for IPR – Ethics Aspects – Dissemination, Exploitation and Communication – Lump Sum”).

Third parties in Horizon Europe (Subcontractors, Affiliated entity, Associated partner…)

Please note our video series on “Third parties” in Horizon Europe – we always receive a lot of questions on this topic (what are the differences, how should this be taken into account in the application, legal basis, etc.) and have therefore created this online information package – each video is between 5-10 minutes long, and there is also a quick overview in an info sheet: Subcontracting - Affiliated entity - Associated partner - in kind contribution - Purchases (Contractors

Involvement of patient organizations (if relevant for your project) – a few tips

• Involve patient organizations already during the proposal phase. Ideally, they should be involved in the project design from the outset and can, for example, provide important input for the “Impact” chapter.
• patient organizations can participate in the project as beneficiaries. Advantages: increased visibility, active participation, funding. The can also be part of an Advisory Ethics board.
• Patient organizations often contribute to the WP on “Dissemination, Exploitation, Communication”, e.g. contributions to websites, social media, participation in conferences, workshops, etc.
• Through a patient panel you can also involve individual patients.
• Get more ideas in our info sheet (German) or listen to our Coffee Chat on “patient engagement in EU projects” and/or check the presentation.

Gender Balance – Table “Researchers involved in the proposal” in Part A

Be aware that in Horizon Europe, gender balance among researchers is one of the ranking criteria for proposals with the same evaluation scores. This has just been adjusted in the “General Annexes” and now only applies to researchers with a leading role listed in the table “Researchers involved in the project” in Part A. This is about balance, so as close to 50:50 as possible, for the whole proposal, all organisations! It could lead to scenarios like this: "To prioritise proposal xx, yy, zz, which have identical scores for both Excellence and Impact, the gender balance criterion was applied. Proposal xxhas better gender balance than proposals yy and zz."

Cluster Health - Two Stage

Templates

Always use the most recent templates, not old ones from previous submissions, the latest version is available in the Submission Portal! The NCP FFG has created a fact sheet on the latest important changes. There is strict page limit of 10 pages for the 1st stage.

Tips for 1st stage - 10 pages layout

Very roughly, you should divide your 10 pages like this:

• 6-7 pages for Excellence (Objectives and Ambitions, Methodology)
• 3-4 pages for the Impact section (50% of the evaluation score!!)
• Minimum font size 11 points, single spacing, 15mm margins allowed
• Some texts can probably be smaller…literature references (only a few key references, no space!), captions, pictures, but please ensure they are readable
• No table of contents, no list of project partners (blind evaluation!) => You can start the text directly after the title on the 1st page
• If you have clinical studies, describe them in the methodology chapter: “Depending on the characteristics of the study, key aspects of a clinical study have to be convincingly addressed already at stage 1” => for example No of patients, statistics, recruitment, in-/exclusion criteria, regulatory issues….
• Methodology: don’t forget about short paragraphs on integration of SSH (social science and humanities), gender dimension, open science practices => see info in proposal form! Evaluators evaluate all aspects, so even if you think something is not relevant for your proposal, briefly justify WHY. In this context: check out the briefing slides for evaluators and the short “How to...” videos for evaluators are also very insightful (“How to evaluate: Open Sciences - Social Sciences and Humanities – etc)
• Workpackages: description not really foreseen in 1st stage, but not forbidden (since part of Chapter 3 in full proposal, which is not part of Stage 1)
• Don’t forget about blind evaluation! 

Blind Evaluation

All Health two-stage topics participate in the Blind Evaluation pilot, so this is relevant for all of you!

Blind Evaluation means that applicants submitting a proposal must not disclose their organisation names, acronyms, logos nor names of personnel in their proposal abstract and Part B of their 1st stage application.

There is very good guidance on this available:

• Guidance in proposal template => page 13
• FFG Academy Webinar on Two stage applications incl. Blind evaluation: Recording and Slides are available, including a Q&A session
• Webinar by the European Commission from 2023: Recording and slides, and a list of all questions asked.
• Briefing Slides for Evaluators, from page 94 onwards, has good examples!

Clinical Studies Annex - only obligatory in Stage 2, but important to know for Stage 1

The definition of clinical studies in the context of Horizon Europe is very broad and actually covers all scenarios in which you use or analyse human clinical data and material, even retrospectively, see first footnote in the annex:

“Clinical study covers clinical studies/trials/investigations/cohorts and means, for the purpose of this document, any systematic prospective or retrospective collection and analysis of health data obtained from individual patients or healthy persons in order to address scientific questions related to the understanding, prevention, diagnosis, monitoring or treatment of a disease, mental illness, or physical condition. It includes but it is not limited to clinical trials as defined by Regulation 536/2014 (on medicinal products), clinical investigation and clinical evaluation as defined by Regulation 2017/745 (on medical devices), performance study and performance evaluation as defined by Regulation 2017/746 (on in vitro diagnostic medical devices).” 

Important to know for Stage 1, see statement in Clinical Studies Annex: “In the limited frame of a stage-1 proposal, not all methodological details of clinical studies can be fully elaborated. Depending on the characteristics of the study, however, key aspects of a clinical study have to be convincingly addressed already at stage 1. This template cannot be uploaded as a separate document at stage 1, but relevant aspects of this information should be integrated in part B of the stage 1 proposal template.”

Part A in 1st stage proposal

Only the following information is required in Part A of your proposal in Stage 1:

• General information: title, acronym, duration, keywords (choose carefully: the evaluators will be selected based on these!), abstract (remember, abstract must follow blind evaluation!)
• Participants (partner list, organizational data, department & main contact person): this information will NOT be passed on to the evaluators during blind evaluation. We often get the question whether the consortium can still be changed in the 2ndstage – there should be no substantial changes, please retain the basic structure, but if necessary, 1-2 partners can change or be added. Changes of the coordinator are not recommended!!
• Budget: please only provide the total amount for the entire consortium, no cost breakdown in Stage 1. Again, some deviations are okay in Stage 2, but should remain within reasonable limits (as a guideline, no more/less than 10%).
• No attachments/annexes are allowed in the 1st stage.

Involvement of patient organizations (if relevant for your project) – a few tips

• Involve patient organizations already during the proposal phase. Ideally, they should be involved in the project design from the outset and can, for example, provide important input for the “Impact” chapter.
• patient organizations can participate in the project as beneficiaries. Advantages: increased visibility, active participation, funding. The can also be part of an Advisory Ethics board.
• Patient organizations often contribute to the WP on “Dissemination, Exploitation, Communication”, e.g. contributions to websites, social media, participation in conferences, workshops, etc.
• Through a patient panel you can also involve individual patients.
• Get more ideas in our info sheet (German) or listen to our Coffee Chat on “patient engagement in EU projects” and/or check the presentation.

Third parties in Horizon Europe (Subcontractors, Affiliated entity, Associated partner…)

Please note our video series on “Third parties” in Horizon Europe – we always receive a lot of questions on this topic (what are the differences, how should this be taken into account in the application, legal basis, etc.) and have therefore created this online information package – each video is between 5-10 minutes long, and there is also a quick overview in an info sheet: Subcontracting - Affiliated entity - Associated partner - in kind contribution - Purchases (Contractors

If you have any further questions, please reach out to the NCP FFG: 

• Astrid Hoebertz (astrid.hoebertz@ffg.at)
• Ines Haberl (Ines.Haberl@ffg.at)