Next VPH Funding Call
Next VPH Funding Call
Based on notes from a presentation by Joel Bacquet, Head of sector, ICT for Health, DG-INFSO, in London on 12 December 2011
The European Commission will be publishing a new call for VPH-type research: FP7 ICT Call 9 will be published 18 January, with applications due 17 April 2012.
In spite of the current austerity programmes, the success of current VPH projects has enabled DG-INFSO to secure a budget of €58m for further research. In an effort to encourage world-wide partnerships (and avoid duplication of effort), up to €3m has been reserved for consortium partners in the USA, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Canada. A further €8.5m of the total has been earmarked for “demonstrators” to showcase the possibilities of these new tools.
The overarching goals:
- Obtain more reusable and robust models
- Establish long-term repositories for models and data
In short, the EC wants to take the models that have been developed so far, and move them from “proof of concept” to genuine use, extended to take environmental factors into account where possible. Call 9 has four foci designed to tease out these applications.
Focus A
Patient-specific predictive computer-based models and simulation (including environmental factors). All major diseases are suitable candidates. A successful application must:
- Focus on environmental factors (things external to the human: economic, social, air quality…)
- Use and/or develop multi-scale models
- Answer a specific clinical need
Focus B
Tools, services and infrastructures to obtain more elaborate and reusable multi-scale models and larger repositories for models and associated data. This could include:
- Scaling up existing VPH models/workflows
- Developing new tools/repositories
- Connecting tools from across the world (avoiding duplication of effort)
Note: clinical validation of models and tools is important, but the call uses the word “robust” in the IT sense of “tools that can withstand a full range of use.”
Focus C
The digital patient.
This was largely covered in Call 7; Call 9 projects are strongly encouraged to tie into Call 7 projects where possible.
Focus D
Demonstrators. These should showcase the possibilities of VPH tools and models, with an eye to commercial (or other) exploitation. They want to see highly visual demonstrators that would appeal to medical practitioners and could conceivably be adopted at the end of the project.
The call will be available at http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/page/fp7_calls. The VPH section will be included under Challenge 5, “ICT for health, ageing well, inclusion and governance,” Strategic Objective 5.2. For further information, and help focusing your application, be sure to talk to your National Contact Point – see http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ncp_en.html for contact information.