Rapid Response COVID-19 Call launched by the European Commission



Focus on Behavioural, Social and Economic Impacts of the Outbreak Response

Posted: 25 May, 2020

As part of a series of COVID-19 rapid response calls, the European Commission launched a second call under Societal Challenge 1: Health, demographic change and wellbeing on 19th May 2020.

The request for expressions of interest, entitled “Second call for an Expression of Interest for innovative and rapid health-related approaches to respond to COVID-19 and to deliver quick results for society for a higher level of preparedness of health systems”, is a single-stage call that will close on 11th June.

This call focuses on five areas, with topic 2C, ‘Behavioural, social and economic impacts of the outbreak response’, being of special interest to researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences:

  • Strand 2A: Repurposing of manufacturing for vital medical supplies and equipment
  • Strand 2B: Medical technologies, Digital tools and Artificial Intelligence (AI) analytics to improve surveillance and care at high Technology Readiness Levels (TRL)
  • Strand 2C: Behavioural, social and economic impacts of the outbreak response.

The scope of 2C requests expressions of interest:

  1. ‘Analyse and compare outbreak responses across Europe and impacts on human behaviour and social dynamics…’
  2. ‘Mental health and health inequalities…’

Proposals should focus on lessons learnt. They should:

  1. Address how to mitigate social and economic impacts of the outbreak response related to health systems;
  2. Identify non-intended consequences of epidemic-control decisions; and
  3. Provide answers to social, including gendered, dynamics of the outbreak and the related public health response.

  • Strand 2D: Pan-European COVID-19 cohorts
  • Strand 2E: Networking of existing EU and international cohorts of relevance to COVID-19

The Health Research Board provides a National Contact Point (NCP) for health, Kay Duggan-Walls, who offers support and advice to researchers submitting proposals to Horizon 2020. You may contact Kay if you have any related queries (kdugganwalls@hrb.ie).

InterTradeIreland, along with health and SSH NCPs from Ireland and Northern Ireland, have launched a partnering platform this week to give SMEs and researchers the opportunity to find partners from across the island to collaborate on the call.

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