The Executive Agency for Health and Consumers (formerly the Public Health Executive Agency) was created to support implementation of EU Public Health Programme (PHP) and its lifetime is planned till 31 December 2015. Its tasks include actions in the field of consumer protection and training for safer food.
The Agency provides professional service and works closely with Directorate General for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO). The EAHC manages relations with some 2200 beneficiaries involved in more than 200 projects in the field of health; it has about 40 staff members based in Luxembourg.
The agency finances four types of actions in the field of public health: projects, conferences, joint actions and operation grants. All actions must have a European dimension: a minimum of various partners (leading or associate) of different European Countries have to be involved in the project plan. This means that they should involve as many organisations as possible and at least two mutually independent legal entities – one main partner and one associated partner – established in two different eligible countries. Exceptionally, a project may have only one beneficiary as long as it offers a European dimension by itself (e.g. a pan-European association).
For receiving a European grant projects generally have to contribute at least to one of the 3 main objectives of the Health Programme (2008-2013):
– to improve citizens’ health security,
– to promote health, including the reduction of health inequalities,
– to generate and disseminate health information and knowledge.
Furthermore the applicant must have to be legally established in:
– one of the 27 EU member states,
– an EFTA country party to European Economic Area (Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway),
– Croatia.
Organisations from other countries may participate as subcontractors or collaborating partners.
Financial support is provided only to legally established organisations -such as non-governmental organisations, public sector bodies, public administrations, universities, higher education establishments etc.
An application for funds must respect four rules:
– co-financing: you need to have your own financial resources (or financial resources of third parties). The EAHC will normally subsidize between 50–60 percent of the eligible costs,
– non-profit: the grant may not have the purpose or effect of producing a profit ,
– non-retroactivity: you can get co-funding only for the costs incurred after the starting date
– non-cumulate: each action may give rise to the award of only one grant to any one beneficiary.
http://ec.europa.eu/eahc/index.html