THCS European Partnership Call 2026

FCT is a member of the co-funded European Partnership THCS – Transforming Health and Care Systems, which aims to coordinate and optimise research and innovation (R&I) efforts in Europe and its partner countries in order to support the transformation of health systems. The partnership currently brings together 66 partners from 27 countries, including FCT, the Agency for Clinical Research and Biomedical Innovation (AICIB) and the Regional Coordination and Development Commission of the Centre (CCDRC).

The fourth THCS call aims to fund transnational R&I projects which, within an ecosystemic approach, contribute to ensuring equitable access to and use of health and medical care services. Through the R&I projects funded, policymakers and decision-makers should acquire the knowledge and tools necessary to implement the reallocation of resources as the health and medical care system undergoes a transition to respond to new and ongoing challenges.

The overall theme of JTC 2026 is “Access to Care”. Proposals submitted under this call for proposals should take into account the following aspects:

Be based on existing evidence and fill clear gaps.
Develop innovative solutions to improve access to health services at all levels.
Develop solutions to compensate for disparities related to socio-economic factors.
Develop strategies to address pre-identified gaps in access to health and care, combining interdisciplinary care, sustainability and innovation.
Promote targeted interventions to reduce inequalities, particularly in underserved areas, and demonstrate or test how these solutions can be implemented, scaled up and shared.
Develop solutions to integrate digital care that increase inclusion and reduce disparities.
Explore patterns of use and propose policies for the appropriate use of health services.
Adopt a co-creation approach with different stakeholders and an interdisciplinary approach, particularly with the social sciences.

1. 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 with head office in Portugal.

iii. Non-profit private institutions whose main object is R&D activity, including Collaborative Laboratories (CoLab) and Technology and Innovation Centres (CTI).

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

b) Companies of any type and under any legal form.

The information contained in this section does not exempt you from consulting Article 3 of FCT’s Regulation No. 999/2016, in its current wording, i.e., as amended and republished by Regulation No. 5/2024 and corrected by Rectification Statement No. 366/2024/2, of 23 May 2024 (see FCT Regulation in Call Documents and the applicable national and European Union legislation).

The 2026 THCS call consists of the submission of pre-proposals (1st phase) and full proposals (2nd phase). Only the pre-proposals submitted by the transnational consortia in the 1st phase may 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 for 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:

Consult the Call Documents area.
Consult FCT eligibility rules (see Call Text).
Submit, by the transnational consortium coordinator, the proposal form on the application Submission platform (see Important Links) until 1 p.m. GMT in mainland Portugal on 02/02/2026.
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 cal website (see Important Links) and refers only to the FCT's participation in this call, unless expressly indicated.

Elegibility

The eligibility check of applications 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 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 national and transnational criteria.
FCT and CCDR Centro, 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 stage.

• Full proposal evaluation stage.

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 note:

Portuguese institutions funding must follow FCT’s Regulation No. 999/2016, in its current wording, i.e., as amended and republished by Regulation No. 5/2024 and corrected by Rectification Statement No. 366/2024/2, of 23 May 2024 (see FCT Regulation and Normas de execução financeira in Call Documents 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.
Each Portuguese applicant from the same transnational consortium may only apply for funding from one Portuguese participating funding agency, FCT and CCDR Centro.
If two or more Portuguese applicants from the same transnational consortium apply for funding from the Portuguese participating funding agencies, FCT and CCDR Centro, 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 CCDR Centro for a consortium with Portuguese participation is €100,000.00 for each agency, two Portuguese applicants of the same transnational consortium may apply for up to €50,000.00 from FCT and up to €50,000.00 from CCDR Centro.
If FCT or CCDR Centro 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
The dedication (FTE) in transnational projects is not considered for the 100% (FTE) dedication to national projects.
Under the terms of number 2 of 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’s participation.