ExpectedOutcome:
This topic aims at supporting activities that are enabling or contributing to one or several expected impacts of destination 3 “Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden”. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim for delivering results that are directed, tailored towards and contributing to all of the following expected outcomes:
- The EU’s response to curb antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is improved and the EU is reinforced as an internationally recognised driver of research and innovation on AMR thereby substantially contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals related to AMR;
- EU and national agencies, the scientific communities, policymakers and funders enhance their collaboration and coordination for a strengthened ‘One Health (OH) approach to fight antimicrobial resistance’ forming a strong and structured ecosystem with shared evidence, tools and methodologies cutting across sectors;
- Research funders, policymakers, relevant agencies and authorities, and the research community are in a position to close the current gaps and break existing silos on AMR in accordance with the European One Health Action Plan against AMR[1] and the EU Council Recommendation to combat antimicrobial resistance in a one health approach[2];
- Research funders align, adopt and implement their research policies and activities allowing for the optimal generation of novel solutions to prevent and treat infectious diseases affected by AMR, improved surveillance and diagnosis and control of the spread of resistant microorganisms, testing and validation of such solutions and facilitating their uptake or implementation responding to the needs to reduce the burden of AMR;
- The EU is strengthened as an internationally recognised actor for research and innovation on AMR with a one health approach substantially contributing to global cooperation and coordination by expanding beyond Europe;
- The research community at large benefit from and use an improved comprehensive knowledge framework integrating the EU, national/regional data and information infrastructures to improve transnational research.
Scope:
The partnership should contribute to the priorities set in the European One Health Action plan to fight AMR and in the Council Recommendation on stepping up EU actions to combat antimicrobial resistance in a One Health approach that provide European frameworks with actions and objectives focused on areas with the highest added value for Member States, including boosting research development and innovation.
In this, the European Partnership One Health AMR should allow coordinating, aligning of activities and funding among countries in the EU and beyond, as well as facilitating national coherence on research and innovation between different services/ministries with responsibility for the various aspects of AMR and sectors involved (e.g. human and animal health, agriculture, environment, innovation).
This Partnership should also contribute to achieving the objectives of the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe[3], in terms of fulfilling unmet medical needs on AMR and ensuring that the benefits of innovation reach patients in the EU, and support the objectives of the new EU4Health Programme[4], as well as supporting the objectives of the Farm to Fork Strategy[5].
Thanks to its capacity to bring together different stakeholders (e.g. research funders, health authorities, citizens, healthcare providers, innovators, policymakers), the Partnership will create a critical mass of resources and implement a long-term Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA)[6].
The co-funded European Partnership on One Health AMR should be implemented through a joint programme of activities ranging from coordinating transnational research efforts to other activities such as coordination and networking activities, capacity building programmes, brokerage and mobility programmes, work on research infrastructures and resources, including training and dissemination activities.
The implementation of the future European Partnership on OH AMR should contribute to build a European Research and Innovation Area (ERA) to rapidly and jointly support research and innovation in the fight against AMR.
It should be structured along the following 3 main objectives:
1. Collaboration and alignment of Research and Innovation agendas on OH AMR
The Partnership should mobilise and link key AMR stakeholders, encompassing the human, veterinary, agricultural and environmental disciplines and including a broad spectrum of pathogens, bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses, through a cross-cutting, interdisciplinary one health approach. It should provide a framework to close the current knowledge gaps and break existing silos in the AMR research landscape, facilitating the integration of national and international scientific and policy communities with industry and the civil society.
For this, the partnership could support, although no limited to, the following activities:
- Joint strategic programming and global coordination of research and innovation through an agreed One Health AMR SRIA to understand, prevent and tackle AMR (covering the scientific areas Therapeutics, Surveillance, Detection, Diagnostics, Transmission and Evolution, Interventions for Prevention and Mitigation, including implementation research, economic, environment and social sciences).
- Target research and innovation efforts to actual needs (challenge-driven) of policymakers and stakeholders.
- Create a transnational system that supports collaboration between EU, member states and international initiatives on AMR research and innovation in a One Health approach.
2. Boost Research and Innovation
The OH AMR Partnership should strengthen the European Research Area by supporting excellence in innovative research, capacity building, programmes for development of talent, widening the engagement of countries and sectors not yet involved.
For this, the Partnership could support, although no limited to, the following activities:
- Support excellent AMR research and development with a one health approach on new prevention methods, interventions, treatments and diagnostics through annual joint transnational research calls and research network calls.
- Develop new tools and instruments to support research and innovation.
- Support networking, training and mobility of researchers.
- Facilitate sharing and use of data and research infrastructures.
3. Enhance knowledge translation and uptake
- Facilitate translation of scientific knowledge into innovative solutions.
- Connect, merge and align dissemination of outputs with other initiatives to support evidence-based policy in whole One Health domain.
- Societal engagement by bridging science to society creating awareness of AMR challenges, value creation, support the wellbeing of citizens and sustainability of the environment.
The partnership should also:
Strengthen the OH AMR ecosystem with integrating activities engaging key actors for AMR encompassing the field of human, veterinary and environmental disciplines and the broad spectrum of pathogens, including fungi and viruses.
Implement collaborative activities with International Organisations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Animal Health Organisation (WOAH), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), the G7 and G20 fora, and the global AMR R&D Hub, with the aim to avoid duplication of efforts. International cooperation is encouraged also with low- and middle-income countries where AMR is highly prevalent and prone to spread to Europe.
Establish robust communication and effective information exchange between diverse scientific disciplines and among multiple sectors of the society (as patients, clinicians, veterinarians, pharmacists, food producers, pharmaceutical industry, policymakers and researchers (including those working in the socio-economic, social sciences and humanities).
The Partnership’s governance structure should engage upfront the relevant actors to coordinate, steer and frame the research and innovation activities, facilitate the use and uptake of the results and contribute to a science-based communication of the risk of spread of AMR. The Partnership’s governance and operational structures should also foster a dialogue on sustainability, beyond funding from EU research and innovation framework programmes.
The governance should involve key stakeholders, including but not limited to the research and innovation community, patients and citizens, health and care professionals, and innovation owners.
The Partnership is open to all EU Member States, as well as to countries associated to Horizon Europe and will remain open to third countries wishing to join.
The Partnership should build on, be complementary to and go beyond the existing initiative JPIAMR[7].
To ensure coherence and complementarity of activities and leverage knowledge and investment possibilities, the Partnership is expected to establish relevant collaborations with other Horizon Europe partnerships (institutionalised and co-funded, such as the future European Partnership Animal Health & Welfare [8]) and missions as set out in the working document on ‘Coherence and Synergies of candidate European partnerships under Horizon Europe’[9] as well as to explore collaborations with other relevant activities at EU and international level. The proposals should also consider synergies with EU programmes, including but not limited to EU4Health. The Partnership should align with EU-wide initiatives on open access and FAIR data[10].
Cooperation with international organisations, private sector and non-European institutions and experts may be considered. Participation of third countries is encouraged. Their commitments to the Partnership would not be eligible for the calculation of EU funding. Applicants should describe in their proposal the methodology for their collaboration and the aims they want to achieve with this kind of collaboration.
Proposals should pool the necessary financial resources from the participating national (or regional) research programmes with a view to implementing joint calls for transnational proposals resulting in grants to third parties. Financial support provided by the participants to third parties is one of the activities of this action in order to be able to achieve its objectives.
When defining calls for proposals, this Partnership needs to consider sex and gender characteristics. Also, it needs to consider if to require the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.
[1]https://ec.europa.eu/health/system/files/2020-01/amr_2017_action-plan_0.pdf
[2]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32023H0622(01)
[3]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0761
[4]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%3AOJ.L_.2021.107.01.0001.01.ENG
[5]https://food.ec.europa.eu/horizontal-topics/farm-fork-strategy_en
[6]https://www.jpiamr.eu/activities/one-health-amr/design-oh-amr/
[7]https://www.jpiamr.eu/
[8]Refer to topic HORIZON-CL6-2023-FARM2FORK-01-2
[9]Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, A4 Partnership Sector, October 2020: https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2020-10/ec_rtd_coherence-synergies-of-ep-under-he_annex.pdf
[10]See definition of FAIR data in the introduction to this work programme part.
