Innovative Health Initiative (IHI)

The main aims of IHI are to:

• turn health research and innovation into real benefits for patients and society;
• deliver safe, effective health innovations that cover the entire spectrum of care – from prevention to diagnosis and treatment – particularly in areas where there is an unmet public health need;
• make Europe’s health industries globally competitive.

IHI specific objectives are to:

• Improve our understanding of the factors that affect our health and the development and treatment of certain diseases.
• Integrate fragmented health research and innovation efforts by bringing together health industry sectors and other stakeholders. This will enable the development of tools, data, platforms, technologies and processes that will in turn facilitate the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management of diseases, especially in areas where there is an unmet public health need.
• Demonstrate the feasibility of integrated healthcare solutions that draw on various technologies from different sectors and address the needs of the people who will use them, such as patients and healthcare professionals.
• Make better of opportunities to gather health data and use it in research and care, all while respecting relevant privacy legislation.
• Develop ways of assessing the value of innovative, integrated health care solutions to patients, carers, healthcare professionals and organisations, and other stakeholders.

For more information on IHI missions and objectives, please consult IHI Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). The SRIA guides the direction of the Public-Private partnership and details the areas on which IHI should work on. For each of the specific objectives listed above, the SRIA explains in detail the current challenges faced and how IHI could address them, thus helping them decide which topic ideas should be developed.

IHI also aims to contribute to a number of European policies. This includes:  Europe's Beating Cancer Plan, the new Industrial Strategy for Europe, the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe and the European Health Data Space. The total budget of IHI is of 2.4 billion euros.

IHI Public-Private Partnership has:

• A ‘public’ partner - the European Union.
• Five Industry partners:
  - COCIR(medical imaging, radiotherapy, health ICT and electro-medical industries) 
  - EFPIA / Vaccine Europe (pharmaceutical industry and vaccine industry)  
  - EuropaBio (biotechnology industry)  
  - MedTech Europe (medical technology industry)  

IHI works by bringing together diverse public and private stakeholders (universities, companies large and small, patient organisations, regulators and other health stakeholders) in collaborative projects that address disease areas where there is a high burden on patients and/or society.  

IHI focuses on cross-sectoral projects involving the biopharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical technology sectors, including companies active in the digital area to respond to unmet public health needs. 

By supporting projects that bring together public and private stakeholders from these various sectors, IHI aims to pioneer a new, more integrated approach to health research, covering prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and disease management. IHI more integrative approach should therefore also help break down the silos between health industry sectors and strengthen industry-academia collaborations.

Open Calls

Current funding opportunities are listed on IHI's Open calls page.

Future Opportunities

If you are interested in what will potentially be funded next, please consult IHI page on Future Opportunities. Draft information on future calls are published (ahead of official publication) on this page to give applicants more time to join or build a consortium and develop a strong proposal.

IHI builds on the experience, lessons learnt and successes of the Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI), partnership between the EU and the European pharmaceutical industry. Like IMI, IHI brings together a range of stakeholders in collaborative projects but has a greater focus on cross-sectoral collaboration and include all stakeholders in the patient’s journey (the biopharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical technology sectors). IHI now also covers prevention, diagnostics, treatment and disease management.