This call supports the development and improvement of trustworthy, ethical AI-based tools and technologies to enhance pandemic preparedness and response across the EU. It aims to leverage diverse and high-quality data to improve detection, monitoring, forecasting, and management of infectious diseases, enabling faster and more effective public health actions. Proposals should address technical, operational, and societal challenges, involve stakeholders including SMEs and social sciences experts, and focus on fairness by mitigating biases in AI models, ultimately contributing to better decision-making and control of epidemics and pandemics.

Expected Outcome:

This topic aims at supporting activities that are enabling or contributing to one or several expected impacts of destination “Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden”. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim to deliver results that are directed, tailored towards and contributing to all the following expected outcomes:

• The potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used in all aspects that determine optimal pandemic preparedness and response, and fast learning systems are supported, to the benefit of scientists, public health responders and policymakers. This includes using the full potential of available quality data for research and innovation to transform the development of medical, social or logistical countermeasures, as well as the detection, management and monitoring of emergencies at population levels, and the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention at the level of individuals.
• European pandemic preparedness and response benefits from readily available, trustworthy and ethical AI-based tools and technologies that enable it to act fast and in a targeted manner, to timely detect and understand emerging infectious threats, to respond adequately and proportionally to identified threats, and to control such threats effectively and efficiently.
• Different data types from multiple sources and disciplines across the EU and globally can be accessed, integrated and analysed by scientists, public health responders and policymakers, using trustworthy and ethical AI-based tools and technologies that support pandemic preparedness and response.