Reducing what does not work: designing effective Horizon Europe proposals on low-value care through the HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-CARE-03 call topic
17th November 2025 at 9:27 am
Every unnecessary test, treatment or procedure in healthcare consumes resources that could be better used elsewhere. The HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-CARE-03 call topic aims to change that by funding research to identify, measure and reduce low-value care across Europe’s health systems. Under this Research and Innovation Action (RIA), four projects of around € 10 million each will be funded. The goal is simple: to improve outcomes for patients while making care more efficient, sustainable and fair. With the 16 April 2026 deadline still six months away, this is the perfect moment to start shaping your Horizon Europe proposal. In this blog, we unpack what the European Commission (EC) wants to see and offer practical advice to help you design a competitive, impactful project.
Designing socially responsible and evidence-based approaches
According to the OECD, up to one-fifth of healthcare spending could be redirected to better uses. Low-value care, defined as interventions that provide little or no benefit to patients, can lead to negative consequences for patients, their caregivers, the healthcare workforce, the health system as a whole and the wider environment. This call fits under the Horizon Europe destination “Ensuring equal access to innovative, sustainable and high-quality healthcare”, reinforcing the EU’s focus on smarter, value-based systems. Under this call topic, in which consortia may include clinical studies, proposals are encouraged to use implementation research and multidisciplinary methods, data models or AI-based tools to identify and reduce low-value care.
Meeting key objectives
1. Understanding and identifying low-value care: Projects should develop a deeper understanding of how low-value care can be identified and measured throughout the healthcare process, including testing related indicators and producing evidence-based methodologies that enable the pursuit of improved efficiency and quality of care.
Tip: Combine multiple data sources such as hospital records, registries and reimbursement data to reveal patterns. Collaboration across registries or national datasets is encouraged, as it allows for benchmarking and comparison across countries.
2. Identifying inefficiencies: Projects should identify instances of overuse, misuse, underuse and unwarranted variation in specific healthcare contexts across different stages of the healthcare process, including the provision of actionable insights for better decision-making.
Tip: Collaborate with clinicians and health authorities to validate findings and ensure that identified low-value practices are relevant, feasible to address and clearly linked to improved patient outcomes.
3. Develop and/or pilot innovative strategies
Proposals should then pilot and evaluate innovative strategies to reduce low-value care in specific settings and demonstrate their scalability and transferability.
Tip: Align your indicators with those used by the EU Expert Group on Health Systems Performance Assessment (HSPA) and the European Partnership on Transforming Health and Care Systems (THCS). This shows awareness of the broader European context and supports policy uptake.
Putting patients at the centre
Projects should follow a patient-centred approach, creating solutions that reflect the needs and preferences of citizens while considering ethical, social and legal aspects.
Tip: Involve patients and civil society organisations in co-designing interventions. Their perspective can reveal what “value” truly means in daily care. Keeping uptake in mind, include communication and education elements to help citizens understand why discontinuing certain interventions benefits overall quality.
Addressing inequalities and gender dimensions
Low-value care can reflect underlying inequalities. Certain populations, for example, by gender or socioeconomic status, may receive unnecessary care, while others face underuse of effective services. Additionally, proposals should consider how gender norms and roles influence utilisation patterns, ensuring that strategies to reduce low-value care do not inadvertently exacerbate existing gender and social inequalities in healthcare access and outcomes.
Tip: Collect sex- and gender-disaggregated data and analyse intersectional factors such as age, income or ethnicity. Assess how proposed interventions will affect vulnerable groups and show how your approach can reduce, rather than reinforce, existing disparities.
Learning from and linking to EU initiatives
Many European efforts are already working to improve the value and performance of healthcare systems. Horizon Europe expects applicants to build on and connect with these, including the THCS, the HSPA and relevant projects or Joint Actions funded under the EU4Health Programme (2021-2027) and under EU Research & Innovation Framework Programmes or other international initiatives.
Tip: Reference and, where possible, collaborate with these initiatives to show continuity and complementarity. Evaluators favour projects that fit into the wider European landscape and that do not duplicate efforts.
Looking for proposal writing support?
Since our foundation, we have been collaborating with more than 1,000 organisations in Europe and beyond. Our track record includes Horizon Health RIAs such as EDiHTA, EXPOSIM, EU PAL-COPD, GLIOMATCH, GENEGUT, COVend and MyPath. Additionally, our support extends to many more health-focused ITNs, including MITGEST and MobiliTraIN, as well as Pathfinder-Open projects related to health, such as POLINA and BoneOscopy.
The HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-CARE-03 call invites applicants to rethink how healthcare resources are used and to create solutions that enhance quality, efficiency and fairness across Europe’s health systems. If you are preparing a proposal, connect with our Horizon Health experts to learn how we can help you develop a compelling, well-structured and impact-driven project for the upcoming Horizon Europe deadline.
