This funding call supports interdisciplinary research and development projects on innovative medical technology and health technologies that improve women’s health. Issued by the Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), the call is part of the Hightech Agenda Germany and focuses on disruptive technological solutions for diagnosis and therapy in areas where women face unmet medical needs. The programme aims to strengthen Germany’s research, innovation, and industrial landscape in medtech and health technologies while addressing persistent gaps in healthcare provision for women.

The call is explicitly designed to support projects with a significant technological leap and a realistic path to later exploitation and market uptake. It addresses women’s health from menarche to postmenopause and encourages projects that significantly improve treatment pathways for female-specific diseases and diseases with higher prevalence in women. The programme is technology-open, but it clearly emphasizes the development and validation of innovative diagnostic and therapeutic solutions, including medical devices, biomarker-based methods, AI-supported systems, adaptive drug delivery, neuromodulation, and advanced monitoring technologies.

Eligible projects must fall within one of three medical disciplines: gynecology, neurology, or clinical immunology. Examples named in the call include polycystic ovary syndrome, vaginal health, vulvodynia, catamenial epilepsy, dementia-related diseases, multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and mast cell activation syndrome. Applicants must convincingly demonstrate the medical need, the scientific and technological rationale, the innovation level, and the relevance to women’s health. The programme also places particular importance on reducing the gender data gap by supporting the creation and use of representative datasets for women’s health, especially where AI methods are involved.

The funding supports pre-competitive, application-oriented individual and collaborative projects. Projects must show strong interdisciplinary cooperation between science and industry, and they should include relevant medical, technical, and regulatory expertise. A functional demonstrator is expected as the project goal. Regulatory readiness is an important part of the programme: applicants must consider requirements under the Medical Device Regulation (MDR), quality management, risk management, usability, and the future usability of generated clinical data in approval processes. Pure consumer applications, stand-alone smartphone apps, projects focused mainly on pharmacological drug development, pure data collection, or direct certification of a medical product prototype are excluded.

Eligible applicants include universities, non-university research institutions, companies of all sizes including start-ups and SMEs, hospitals, medical institutions, care institutions, associations, and societies. Only project partners based in Germany can receive funding, although international collaboration is welcome. Projects are generally funded for up to 36 months as non-repayable grants. The procedure is two-stage: first, a project sketch must be submitted; second, selected applicants are invited to submit a full proposal. The call was published in the Federal Gazette on 20 March 2026, and project sketches must be submitted by 30 April 2026 at 13:00.

Opening: 20.03.2026
Deadline(s): 30.04.2026

This funding opportunity represents an early draft that has not yet been officially approved by the European Commission. It is expected that details of the calls will change until finalization. The final, approved version is expected to be published by End of 2025. This draft is provided for informational purposes and may be used to preliminarily form consortia and develop project ideas, but it is offered without any guarantee.