THCS European Partnership 2025 Call

OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVES

FCT is a member of the co-funded European Partnership Transforming Health and Care Systems, which aims to coordinate and optimise research and innovation efforts in Europe and partner countries to support the transformation of health systems.

The partnership currently brings together 64 partners from 26 countries, including FCT, the Agency for Clinical Research and Biomedical Innovation (AICIB) and the Regional Coordination and Development Commission of Centro (CCDRC).

The third THCS call aims to fund R&I projects that, within an ecosystem approach, strengthen health and primary and community care systems and provide policy and decision makers with the knowledge and tools needed to manage appropriate transitions in the primary and community care sector. Projects funded under this call will deliver promising innovations in financial, organizational and practice-based services,  that promote the transformation of health and care systems and contribute to a faster exchange of good practices between different countries and regions.

TOPICS

The general theme of JTC 2025 is: “Better care closer to home: Enhancing primary and community care”. Proposals to be submitted under this call must address at least one of the following themes:

1. Strengthening the primary and community health and care systems
2. Systemic approaches to modernising the primary and community care sector

The following are individual or co-promotion beneficiaries:

a) Non-entrepreneurial entities of the R&I system, namely:

    i. Higher education institutions, their institutes and R&D units;

    ii. State, Associated or International Laboratories based in Portugal;

   iii. Private non-profit institutions whose main purpose is R&D activities, including Collaborative Laboratories (CoLab) and Technology and Innovation Centres (TIC);

   iv. Other non-profit public and private institutions developing or participating in scientific research activities.

b) Companies of any nature and in any legal form.

The information contained in this section does not exempt you from consulting Article 3 of the Regulation of projects financed exclusively by national funds, Regulation no. 5/2024, of 3 January, which amends and republishes Regulation no. 999/2016, of 31 October (see FCT Regulation, available in the 'Call Documents' area).

The THCS partnership's 2025 call consists of the pre-proposal submission phase (1st phase) and the full proposal phase (2nd phase). Only pre-proposals submitted by transnational consortia in the 1st phase will be invited to submit full proposals in the 2nd phase.

Each Proposing Institution (PI) that is part of a transnational consortium can only apply for funding from the Participating Funding Agencies (PFA) of its country or region. See the Call Text (under Call Documents) for information on the eligibility rules of each PFA and on the transnational eligibility rules. For a proposal to be eligible, it must comply with the national and transnational eligibility rules.

To submit their application, each Portuguese PI wishing to apply for funding from FCT should:

1. consult the Call Documents area;
2. consult FCT eligibility rules (see Call Text);
3. submit, by the transnational consortium coordinator, the proposal form on the application submission platform (see Important links) until 13:00 GMT in mainland Portugal on 30/01/2025;
4. send to FCT, within 10 working days after the deadline for submitting the application, a Statement of Commitment (SoC) completed and signed by the Portuguese Researcher in Charge (RC) identified by the PI and by a qualified representative of the PI. The SoC should be sent to the email address indicated in Contacts.

Please note:

• Failure to send the SoC to FCT on the date referred to in paragraph 4, or the unjustified delivery of the SoC after that deadline, or the delivery of an incomplete SoC, without one of the two parts RC and PI – that make it up or without the signatures of the Portuguese RC and/or a qualified representative of the Portuguese PI, will result in the application being declared ineligible.
• If two or more Portuguese applicants from the same transnational consortium apply for funding from FCT, each must send a completed and signed SoC to FCT.
• One SoC must be sent to FCT for each application submitted by the same RC and PI.
• Portuguese partners of transnational consortia that do not apply for funding from FCT do not need to submit the SoC to FCT.
• The PI stamp or white seal is only required on manually signed SoC.

The information on this page is only a summary of the call, does not exempt the candidates from carefully reading all the call documents available on this page and on the call website (see Important links) and refers only to FCT’s participation in this call, unless expressly indicated.

Eligibility

The eligibility check of proposals is carried out at both stages of the call (pre-proposal submission stage and full proposal submission stage):

• National/Regional Funding Agencies check national eligibility of applications, ensuring compliance with the formal requirements in the applicable national/regional regulations and other applicable documents (see FCT Regulation, Normas de execução financeira and national annexes in the Call Documents area).
• Transnational eligibility check of applications will be performed by the Call Secretariat, according to the transnational eligibility criteria presented in the Call Text in the Call Documents area.

Please note:

• For a proposal to be declared eligible it must fulfil both the national and transnational criteria.
• FCT and CCDRC, as Portuguese funding agencies on this call, reserve the right to evaluate the possibility of transferring application(s) to other Portuguese funding agency/agencies if an application is considered non-eligible by the funding agency selected by the candidate institution, but is eligible by the other Portuguese funding agency/agencies. The transfer of applications will be carried out in accordance with the terms set out in the MoU signed between the parties.

Evaluation

The call includes two evaluation phases:

• Pre-proposal evaluation phase.
• Full proposal evaluation phase.

Proposals will be evaluated according to the evaluation criteria described in the Call Text in the Call Documents area.

The participating national/regional funding agencies, will decide, according to the stage the call is at, which 1) pre-proposals to invite to submit a full proposal and which 2) proposals to recommend for funding.

• FCT financial commitment for the call: 500 000,00€
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese coordination: 250 000,00€
• Maximum requested funding for a consortium with Portuguese participation: 150 000,00€

Please mind:

• Portuguese institutions funding must follow FCT’s Regulation on projects funded solely by national funds, Regulation no. 5/2024, of 3 January, which amends and republishes Regulation no. 999/2016, of 31 October (see FCT Regulation and Normas de Execução Financeira, both available in the Call Documents area, and the applicable national and European legislation).
• If more than one Portuguese applicant from the same transnational consortium applies for funding from FCT, the combined budget requested from FCT by the Portuguese applicants may not exceed the maximum funding limit for a consortium with Portuguese coordination 250 000,00€ or with Portuguese participation 150 000,00€. The Portuguese applicants of the same transnational consortium will have to share the funding that will be granted by FCT.
• The dedication (FTE) in transnational projects is not considered for the 100% (FTE) dedication  to national projects
• Under the terms of No 2 Article 7 of the Regulation on projects funded solely by national funds, payments made directly or indirectly to companies through the Proposing Institution cannot exceed 50% of the total cost of the company participation.
• Each Portuguese applicant from the same transnational consortium may only apply for funding from one Portuguese participating funding agency, FCT and CCDRC.
• If two or more Portuguese applicants from the same transnational consortium apply for funding from the Portuguese participating funding agencies, FCT and CCDRC, the combined funding to be requested to the two agencies by the Portuguese applicants will be considered as referring to a single project for the purpose of maximum requested funding. Example: If the maximum funding from FCT and CCDRC for a Consortium with Portuguese participation is 150 000,00€ for each agency, two Portuguese applicants of the same transnational consortium may apply for up to 75 000,00€ from FCT and up to 75 000,00€ from CCDRC.
• If FCT or CCDRC reach the limit of the budget that each of the agencies has set for funding projects under this call before the number of projects selected for funding by each of these agencies is exhausted, the projects selected for funding that do not have funding may be transferred to the agency that still has the budget to fund projects, provided that the respective eligibility criteria are met. The transfer of projects recommended for funding will be carried out in accordance with the conditions set out in the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the parties.

Call website

Matchmaking platform

Application submission platform

CCDRC website

Partnership website

Partnership page on FCT website

Pedro Miguel Ferreira

Marta Norton

THCS@fct.pt