Latest update from the European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) on the implementation of the Climate Change and Health Flagship of the Strategy for European Life Sciences.

Since the launch of the Strategy for European Life Sciences last year, the team behind it has been busy at work! The strategy's flagship on climate change and health committed to implementing the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda on Health and Climate Change and establishing a multilateral initiative for global collaboration between climate and health funders to foster alignment and support the development of solutions. So far, the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 has delivered on the first of these commitments, with 168 million EUR spread out over 5 topics: 3 research and innovation actions (RIA), 1 pre-commercial procurement (PCP) and 1 coordination and support action (CSA). The 3 calls from 2026 have now been evaluated and projects are expected to begin in the near future. For the calls from 2027, the topics will soon open for proposal submissions, these being:

• HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-ENVHLTH-02 (RIA): Integrating climate-related exposures into the human exposome and characterising its changes in response to climate change. This topic seeks to better integrate climate-related factors into exposomic studies, in which they have been traditionally underrepresented. It also seeks to understand the changes undergone by the exposome in the presence of climate change and its associated stressors. Finally, it seeks to further advance the field of human exposomics in terms of data generation, analysis and interpretation, ultimately contributing to the exposome's maturity as a tangible framework for holistic epidemiological research.

• HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01-ENVHLTH-MISSCLIMA-03 (PCP): Tools and technologies to support health adaptation to climate change. This pre-commercial procurement is aimed towards procurers that may want to jointly procure the development of innovative solutions for supporting health adaptation efforts in relation to climate change (as part of a consortium). This topic will support the development of innovative solutions, tools and models to enhance surveillance, prediction, prevention, risk management and diagnosis (e.g. testing), supporting the adaptation, resilience, and preparedness of healthcare systems and populations to climatic and climate-related environmental health risks.

Finally, we invite you to stay tuned to an exciting event taking place in December…

The European Commission is organising a conference in Brussels on the Strategy for European Life Sciences in order to assess the advances made since its adoption in 2025 and discuss the future opportunities, challenges and next actions needed for life sciences to sustain European innovation and competitiveness. Please mark 2 December in your agenda! More information to follow soon.