After a first successful experience in 2021, the Ministry of the Economy, the National Research Fund (FNR) and Luxinnovation are launching a second joint call for healthtech partnerships. The objective is to provide financial incentives to public-private consortia that want to demonstrate the relevance and benefit of their digital healthtech products and services at the clinical level.
Projects should focus on digital tools and on the use of data analytics to offer solutions for the prevention, diagnosis, monitoring or treatment of health conditions.
“The second edition of the Joint Call Healthtech, which is fully aligned with the national strategy for the healthtech sector, is aimed at accelerating the development of leading innovations aimed at improving public health,” comments Anne Meunier, Project Officer HealthTech at Luxinnovation. “Projects should focus on digital tools and on the use of data analytics to offer solutions for the prevention, diagnosis, monitoring or treatment of health conditions, in particular in order to improve patient autonomy at home or in a care home environment.”
Joint Call HealthTech: Attractive funding opportunity
The objective of the call is to build partnerships between companies, research and healthcare organisations. Similar to other Luxembourg joint calls, the Ministry of the Economy provides funding to private sector participants and the FNR to research organisations. Project consortia must include at least one eligible company and one organisation that is eligible for FNR funding. The FNR will co-fund selected projects with up to €500,000 and the Ministry with up to approx. €700,000.
This new call for projects is quite an attractive funding opportunity for R&D projects involving companies and research organisations from Luxembourg.
“This new call for projects is quite an attractive funding opportunity for R&D projects involving companies and research organisations from Luxembourg,” comments Maximilian Przybyl, Advisor – Corporate R&D and Innovation Support at Luxinnovation. “The synchronised process with a joint funding decision by the Ministry of the Economy and the FNR will greatly facilitate the implementation of such collaborations.”
Application process
Luxinnovation provides a matchmaking platform where interested participants can either share their project ideas or browse the project ideas submitted by others as a first step towards setting up a consortium. Once the right project partners have been identified, consortia can start the application process.
“The first step is to submit a project outline by 31 March 2023,” explains Mr Przybyl. “The granting authorities will then provide feedback on whether the project idea is aligned with the objectives of the call and on the eligibility of the participating organisations. If there is a high number of applications, the granting authorities might also do a pre-selection of applications at this stage.”
Consortia that successfully complete phase 1 will then be invited to submit full project proposals by 14 July 2023. The full proposals will be reviewed by a panel of experts. The formal funding decisions for successful applications are expected in January 2024.
Information webinars
“We are very happy with the renewal of the joint call for the health tech ecosystem,” comments Dr Meunier. “Following the huge enthusiasm generated by the first edition, we are confident that it is a particularly relevant opportunity for companies. It facilitates the access to hospital or public research collaborations, which will help companies assess the relevance and performance of their solutions and the benefits for human health. This is a key step before envisaging a market launch.”
Following the huge enthusiasm generated by the first edition, we are confident that it is a particularly relevant opportunity for companies.
In order to provide useful information to applicants, a series of webinars is now being organised:
- 01.02.2023 I Joint Call HealthTech: Information session
- 21.02.2023 I Main eligibility criteria and eligible project costs for the Joint Call HealthTech
- 07.03.2023 I Co-funding capacity for projects within the Joint Call HealthTech
- 21.03.2023 I Completeness check of the application for the first phase of the Joint Call HealthTech
Anyone interested in the call is welcome to register.
Photos: © Luxinnovation/Marion Dessard