GenAI in Healthcare: Key to unlock EU funding in Autumn 2025
Rising emphasis on Generative AI in the EU
The European Union has significantly sharpened its strategic focus on Generative AI (GenAI) as part of its broader digital and industrial policy. At the institutional level, the EU has moved decisively to coordinate and regulate this technological ambition. The formal establishment of the European AI Office in February 2024, marks a new phase in AI governance, as it assumes responsibility for implementing the AI Act—the world’s first comprehensive AI legislation—including oversight of general-purpose AI models like GenAI.
In April 2025, the EU introduced the AI Continent Action Plan, an ambitious roadmap aimed at securing Europe’s global leadership in AI. Builidng on the AI Innovation Package, the plan sets out concrete actions to accelerate the development, deployment, and adoption of trustworthy AI across the economy and society.
GenAI4EU - A €500 Million Funding Initiative
In parallel, the EU is aligning its innovation funding with its AI strategy - A cornerstone of this is GenAI4EU, a bold €500M initiative announced in early 2024 as part of the EU’s AI Innovation Package.
This initiative aims to support novel GenAI use cases across all 14 of Europe’s industrial ecosystems, reflecting the recognition that GenAI has the potential to revolutionize nearly every sector, from sciences to advanced manufacturing and public services.
In terms of R&D, the EU’s approach positions healthcare as a high-priority use case. GenAI's ability to personalise medical care, improve diagnostics, streamline health workflows and assist with complex data interpretation is explicitly acknowledged in both the AI Innovation package and the GenAI4EU agenda. The Commission is already supporting key flagship initiatives like the Cancer Image Initiative and the Virtual Human Twins Initiative, which are designed to support the next generation of AI-powered diagnostics and treatment tools.
EU grants for GenAI Health across all TRL spectrum
A range of healthcare-focused funding opportunities is scheduled to close between September and October 2025, spanning the full range of Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) and research & innovation pipeline. These opportunities range from EIC Pathfinder’s proof-of-concept explorations (TRL 1–4), up to EIC Accelerator’s support for near-market solutions (TRL 6–8), through mid-TRL Horizon Europe collaborative R&D projects at TRL 2–6, as described below.
1. EIC Pathfinder Challenge 2025:
Proof-of-Principle of breakthrough Generative AI for Cancer diagnosis & treatment (TRL1-4)
As part of its 2025 Work Programme, this EIC Pathfinder Challenge will fund breakthrough research on Generative AI-based Agents to Revolutionize Medical Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer. This low-TRL call specifically targets visionary, high-risk projects aiming to create intelligent GenAI systems that integrate multimodal medical data, such as imaging, clinical records, and genomics, to support clinicians across the oncology care pathway. It supports moving forward the envisioned scientific breakthrough from TRL1–2 to TRL 3–4.
The call seeks proposals that go beyond the current state of the art in AI by overcoming key challenges like data silos, lack of explainability, and limited clinical integration. A particular focus is placed on high-impact cancers, with the goal of improving early detection, personalized treatment planning, and clinical decision-making.
Who can apply: Uniquely, the Pathfinder allows for small consortia or even single-applicant proposals, provided they are well-justified. International partners are welcome, though project coordinators must be based in the EU or associated countries.
Proposals selected under this Challenge will join a thematic portfolio under the supervision of an EIC Programme Manager, who will coordinate cross-project collaboration and portfolio-level impact.
Funding: up to €4 million per project, with a total envelope of €30 million expected to support 7–8 projects. Funding rate is up to 100% of eligible costs.
Submission deadline: 29 October 2025.
2. Horizon Europe Health Cluster Calls – Consortium-based calls to validate or demonstrate GenAI solutions (TRL2-6)
As part of the recently released 2025 Horizon Europe Work Programme, two significant calls under Cluster 1 – Health will open on 22 May 2025. Both Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) fall under the umbrella of the GenAI4EU initiative, reflecting the EU’s deepening commitment to involve a broad range of stakeholders, from healthcare professionals to policymakers and regulators.
Proposals must be submitted by international consortia composed of at least three independent legal entities from three different EU Member States or associated countries, ensuring cross-border collaboration and interdisciplinary input.
The first call, HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-TOOL-03: "Leveraging multimodal data to advance GenAI applicability in biomedical research", focuses on foundational work that enhances the scientific applicability of GenAI. The aim is to develop or adapt high-performing, explainable GenAI models that can effectively combine and process multimodal health data types, including health records, medical imaging, and -omics datasets. These models should be able to accelerate discoveries in predictive and personalised medicine, improve understanding of disease mechanisms, and enable precision tools for biomedical research, therefore they should not be envisaged for a direct clinical application.
Projects should move the main developed solution from TRL 2-3 to TRL4-5 by validating it in two different healthcare use cases.
Funding: between €15 and €27 million per project, with a total envelope of €50 million expected to support 3 projects. Funding rate is up to 100% of eligible costs.
Submission deadline: 16 September 2025.
The second call, HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-CARE-01: "End user-driven application of Generative AI models in healthcare", by contrast, is designed to support the development of virtual health assistant solutions co-created with end-users such as hospitals, clinical teams, and health system operators. Similarly to the previous call, these assistants should leverage multimodal health data, to provide meaningful support in clinical decision-making, personalized care planning, and patient monitoring. A key requirement is that these solutions go beyond theoretical development: they must demonstrate added value and clinical utility, in at least two different real-world use cases. This focus on translational impact aims to bridge the gap between advanced AI research and scalable, implementable tools in frontline care.
Projects funded under this call should move the main solution from TRL 4 to TRL 6 by project completion, with a stronger emphasis on demonstration in operational healthcare settings.
Funding: between €15 and €20 million per project, with a total envelope of €40 million expected to support 2 projects. Funding rate is up to 100% of eligible costs.
Submission deadline: 16 September 2025.
3. EIC Accelerator – GenAI4EU Challenge for close-to-market solutions (TRL6-8)
At the high-TRL end, the EIC Accelerator has launched a thematic Challenge 03 –“GenAI4EU: Creating European Champions in Generative AI” to support the GenAI developed by startups and SMEs.
The call focuses on breakthrough applications of GenAI that align with European values of explainability, transparency, and human oversight, with a broad application on high-impact sectors such as healthcare, energy, and public services.
In the health domain, the challenge explicitly encourages solutions such as AI-assisted medical imaging, where GenAI can enhance diagnostic workflows, automate reporting, and improve clinical decision-making, provided challenges around explainability and workflow integration are addressed. Projects can propose to develop new GenAI models, fine-tune existing ones for specialized health data, or integrate them into real-world, regulated environments.
Who can apply: Unlike collaborative R&D instruments, the Accelerator is designed for single-company applications, typically from startups or SMEs with a working prototype (TRL 6) and a clear plan to reach TRL 8 and commercial deployment. Selected companies are expected to demonstrate strong growth potential and the capacity to become “European champions” in GenAI, while meeting strict standards on safety, ethical use, and technical robustness.
Proposals selected under this Challenge will also benefit from EIC Business Acceleration Services, including mentoring, visibility, and investor matchmaking, in addition to funding.
Funding: Up to €2.5 million in grant funding (covering up to 70% of project costs) per company, plus equity investment of up to ~€10 million for scale-up. The total envelope for the GenAI Challenge is €50 million.
Submission deadline: 1 October 2025. Applications follow a two-stage process, starting with a short application (pitch and video) submitted on a rolling basis, ideally between June and August 2025.
WE can help you Navigate the GenAI4EU in Health
In the second half of 2025, a wave of non-dilutive grants and blended finance opportunities will launch under the GenAI4EU initiative – supporting everything from foundational GenAI research to real-world healthcare applications. With generous budgets and high funding rates, this is a unique opportunity to turn your health innovation into European impact.
But… navigating these calls is not easy. From TRL alignment and consortium building to ensuring explainability and ethical compliance, the bar is high.
Reach out to Nordic Innovators, we can help you:
✔️ Decode the GenAI4EU opportunity landscape
✔️ Match your idea with the right instrument
✔️ Develop winning proposals with strong science, impact, and implementation.
