EU4Health Programme

EU4Health

Funds healthcare programs building resilience and prevention in cancer, rare diseases, and cardiovascular health.

Eligibility · EU member states

EU4Health is the European Union's largest standalone health funding programme since 2003, with a budget of approximately EUR 5.3 billion for 2021–2027. It was established in direct response to lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen healthcare system resilience and accelerate health priorities across the EU. The programme is managed by HaDEA (the Health and Digital Executive Agency) under DG SANTE. Recent work programme priorities include cardiovascular disease and stroke prevention, orphan medical devices for paediatric rare diseases, cancer prevention and treatment in alignment with Europe's Beating Cancer Plan, and healthcare system resilience. HaDEA administers both calls for proposals (grants) and calls for tenders (procurement contracts) under EU4Health — applicants must confirm which instrument type applies to their project before beginning an application.

Eligibility extends to for-profit companies, non-profit organisations, universities, and research bodies registered in EU Member States or EU4Health-associated countries. Individuals are not eligible. The programme funds actions that have genuine EU added value and cannot be adequately addressed by individual Member States acting alone. Grant applications and tenders are both submitted via the SEDIA Funding and Tenders Portal. National Focal Points designated in each Member State provide country-specific advisory support for applicants assessing call fit and consortium requirements.

Award amounts, co-funding rates, and call-specific eligibility conditions are published in Annual Work Programme PDFs rather than at the programme level; prospective applicants should consult HaDEA's programme pages and the SEDIA portal for live call listings. EU4Health evaluation criteria typically weight impact on EU health outcomes, cross-border applicability, and complementarity with existing national health programmes. Organisations working on digital health tools, medical devices, or health system innovations should assess whether a specific EU4Health call is more appropriate than a parallel Horizon Europe Health Cluster (Pillar II, Cluster 1) call, as the two programmes are complementary but serve distinct purposes.