Coronavirus: HERA Incubator & new calls with support of €123 million for urgent research into coronavirus variants

European bio-defense preparedness plan – “Hera Incubator“ – The Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority started in February 2021 to prepare Europe for an increased thread of coronavirus variants. For Europe to react properly HERA Incubator will bring together science, public authorities and industry. HERA Incubator will focus on detecting new variants of the virus to accelerate the development of new vaccines and its production. More information is available here.

As one of the actions under the HERA Incubator the European Commission introduced a measure to speed up the authorization of adapted COVID-19 vaccines. It will allow companies to act faster when it comes to the gathering evidence, moreover it will authorize adapted vaccines with a smaller set of data submitted to the European Medicines Agency. The measure will now go to the European Parliament and Council before entering into force. For original article, click here.

This April, the European Commission announced the mobilization of €123 million to support research of coronavirus variants. It is a first emergency funding under Horizon Europe. The aim is to fight the coronavirus, act to prevent, alleviate and respond top the impact of coronavirus variants in line with the mission of HERA Incubator.

On 13^th April new calls were launched, future funded projects are expected to rapidly advance the knowledge of Coronavirus, develop vaccine candidates, support research and data sharing. The deadline for submission is 6^th May 2021.

Horizon Europe calls:

1. FAIR and open data sharing in support to European preparedness for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases 
2. Research infrastructure services for rapid research responses to COVID-19 and other infectious disease epidemics
3. Vaccines & therapeutic clinical trials to boost COVID-19 prevention and treatment
4. Cohorts united against COVID-19 variants of concern