European ME Coalition (EMEC)

Image of a snowy mountain village in Europe with the text Happy Holidays.

Wishing you and your loved ones a happy holiday season and a healthier New Year. We hope 2026 will bring meaningful progress and increased funding for #MECFS research.

Here's an overview of the program and speakers. MEP Laura BALLARIN, a member of the Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA), just made the introduction.

Prof. Evelina TACCONELLI's talk just started.

Panel for the Future of Science and Technology – Long COVID Workshop Panel - Multimedia Centre The multimedia platform of the European Parliament is the official public available repository of the media production of the Secretariat of the European Parliament, managed by the Directorate-General...

The workshop 'Long Covid: Current Realities, Future Directions' has just started in the European Parliament.

You can follow the live-streamed here:
multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/webstream...

7) 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:
ec.europa.eu/transparency...

6) 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.

5) 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.

4) 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”).

3) 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.”

2) 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.

1) 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 call on ‘post-infection long-term conditions’

🇪🇪 Does anyone know any ME/CFS patient organisations from Estonia?

If you are an ME/CFS patient in Estonia, could you perhaps reach out to us at europeanmecoalition@outlook.com?

Many thanks in advance!

We will keep fighting for research funding so science can provide answers and bring this disease out of the darkness.

Today is #SevereMEDay

Our thoughts are with those stricken by the severest form of the neuro-immune disease #MECFS
It is an endless physical torture with the added distress of being left without medical care and the stigma that aggravates the dire situation.

The target budget is 6 million per project.

The type of research allowed is quite broad, but it needs to be a consortium, a collaboration of multiple partners and institutions.

More info about the call can be found here:
ec.europa.eu/info/funding...

5) It would be great if ME/CFS organizations were able to receive funding for their work from one of these EU programs.

The ME/CFS community needs all the funding it can get to accelerate progress.

4) Creative Europe (CREA) supports cultural and creative sectors including the he audiovisual sector.
ec.europa.eu/info/funding...

3) There’s also the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) that aims to protect and promote Union rights and values such as inclusive societies.
ec.europa.eu/info/funding...

2) The European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) has a large budget and objectives such as “Equal access to … social protection systems” and “social integration of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion.”
european-social-fund-plus.ec.europa.eu/en/how-acces...

Funding opportunities for NGOs NGOs can benefit from a number of funding opportunities.

1) The European Commission has several funding opportunities for NGO’s, which might also be relevant for ME/CFS organizations.

We wanted to share some of these programs.
commission.europa.eu/funding-tend...

6) Deadline date: 16 September 2025 17:00:00 Brussels time

Link to the call:
ec.europa.eu/info/funding...

5) This is as close as we can get to ring-fenced funding for #MECFS at the European level.

We hope #MECFS researchers will seize the opportunity and submit multiple strong applications.

4) By using this approach, high quality #MECFS research proposals will not be competing with those in other medical areas.

This new approach means that one #MECFS research project will be funded with certainty if the threshold is reached.

3) This means that the highest rated application in the area of #MECFS will be funded on the condition that it attains a thresholds of 4 or more for Excellence, Impact, and Implementation with a cumulative threshold of 12.

2) For the #HorizonEurope call Tackling high-burden for patients and under-researched medical conditions (HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-DISEASE-07) the Commission has created a new selection procedure (explained in the screenshot below).

ec.europa.eu/info/funding...

1) Important news: there is now a much greater chance than ever before for #MECFS scientists to obtain funding from #HorizonEurope.

#BlueSunday2025 at the EMEC headquarters 💙
Coffee or lemonade with cookies and a game of Rummikub to celebrate this special day. Our dog mascot Shifra got some biscuits too.

We donated to the @irishmecfsassoc.bsky.social in honor of our friend @tomkindlon.bsky.social

#TeaPartyForME #MECFS

The final version of the 2025 Horizon Europe work program has now been published and ME/CFS is indeed mentioned under the call on high-burden, under-researched medical conditions.

Link 👇
research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/fund...

There is almost always a personal connection when politicians take action or scientists start to study ME. Seeing the ravages of the disease up close is an important motivation to fight for change.

12) Nonetheless we should mention that these calls are highly competitive and have a low rate of success. Last time there were more than 100 applications of which only 4 received funding.

11) We hope that these conferences will lay the foundation for a Europe-wide collaboration of ME/CFS researchers and a strong application for the European call.