A first draft for the Horizon Europe work program 2026-2027 has been published by the European Commission. While it no longer includes the previous call on high-burden under-researched conditions, there’s now a new relevant call on ‘post-infection long-term conditions.
This new call is listed for 2026 and named: “HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03: Advancing research on the prevention, diagnosis, and management of post-infection long-term conditions.” It has a budget of 40 million in total and aims to provide 6-8 million per project.
The call focuses on “long-term conditions resulting from infections by any type of microorganism (including viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi), which persist after the initial infection has resolved.” Proposals should help to identify risk factors (such as genetics or immune responses), identify biomarkers or new diagnostic approaches and develop therapeutic interventions (“clinical studies are expected”).
Inclusion of small or medium-sized enterprises (SME), patient stakeholders, and AI or computational modelling are encouraged. Specific attention should be given to sex/gender, as women often experience post-infectious diseases differently.
We believe this call provides a valuable funding opportunity for researchers of ME/CFS and Long Covid. The Work Program and the call are a preliminary draft , however, so they are still subject to changes.
The draft of the 2026-2027 Work Program has been made available by the European Commission itself in the Comitology Register and can be downloaded here: https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/comitology-register/screen/documents/107970/2/consult?lang=en