Health conditions with high unmet needs: call for proposals

Do you know of, or do you suffer from, a disease for which there is no treatment, for which treatment has many side-effects, has high costs or has a major impact on the quality of life of patients and their loved ones?

These realities lead to unmet health-related needs. To allow policy-makers, researchers and the various key stakeholders in the healthcare system to focus on improving the main unmet needs linked to specific diseases or health problems, it is essential to identify these unmet needs. This requires scientific research.

We invite you to report an illness or health problem where there are significant unmet needs…..Your proposal will be included in a list of diseases or health problems that could be studied as part of the NEED (Needs Examination, Evaluation and Dissemination) project. Initiated by the Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre (KCE) and Sciensano, this project aims to create an independent research infrastructure that collects data on unmet needs in various diseases or health problems.

There are two calls:

1 Case studies in Belgium:

If you are aware of an illness or health problem associated with high unmet needs in Belgium, we invite you to take part in this call for study proposals. You can complete the online topic proposal form by:

Following this link (you can also select a French/Dutch version):
o https://surveys.kce.be/index.php/136572?lang=en

In 2024-2025, the KCE and Sciensano plan to test the research processes with two case studies on two proposed topics.

2 Identifying unmet needs in Europe:

In parallel to the call for Belgian topic proposals, a call will be launched on the European level, for topics of relevance in a broader geographical context. These will also be included in the list of topics that could be studied as part of NEED. However, for the selection of the next two case studies, a selection will primarily be made amongst the cases proposed for Belgium.

If you would like to report an illness or health problem associated with high unmet needs in Europe, we invite you to take part in a call by completing an online questionnaire: