Introduction
This call is part of the European Innovation Council (EIC) Work Programme 2025 under the Pathfinder Challenge scheme. The EIC supports visionary thinking and early-stage research with the potential to lead to technological breakthroughs. The Challenge is managed by EIC Programme Manager Federica Zanca.

General description
This Pathfinder Challenge aims to revolutionize cancer diagnosis and treatment through the development of interactive Generative AI (GenAI) autonomous agents. These agents will provide clinicians with a holistic, end-to-end perspective of patient care across the entire clinical pathway. The challenge encourages integration of GenAI with other advanced AI technologies such as topological and geometric deep learning, neural fields, and graph neural networks.

Projects should focus on early-stage, groundbreaking research to:

• Integrate and interpret multimodal medical imaging and health data.
• Generate reliable synthetic medical data to be pooled into a common database.
• Develop advanced algorithms for diagnosis and treatment.

Each proposal must target one specific cancer type: breast, cervical, ovarian, prostate, lung, brain, stomach, or colorectal cancer.

Objectives
Proposals must address at least one sub-objective from each of the following areas:

• Technological Area:

  • GenAI tools for integrating multidimensional and multimodal health data.
  • Medical data augmentation using synthetic data.
  • Medical knowledge representation and integration.

• Clinical Area:

• Predictive diagnosis using patient history, imaging, and genetics.
• Personalized treatment selection and forecasting of disease progression.

Projects must demonstrate proof-of-concept in controlled settings and ensure interpretability, transparency, and compliance with EU Trustworthy AI principles and the AI Act. Use of platforms such as Cancer Image Europe is encouraged.

Budget

The budget details are not specified in the Challenge Guide. However, selected projects may receive additional support such as:

• Booster grants up to €50,000
• Access to EIC Business Acceleration Services
• Fast Track to EIC Accelerator
• Possibility to apply for EIC Transition funding

Requirements

• Proposals must focus on only one of the specified cancer types.
• Must address at least one sub-objective from both the technological and clinical areas.
• Projects that do not meet these criteria will be considered out of scope.
• Compliance with ethical principles, data privacy, and security is mandatory.
• Proposals should include a dedicated work package for portfolio activities (minimum 10 person-months).
• Participation in portfolio activities is required, including strategic planning, collaboration, and dissemination.
• Applicants may be asked to amend proposals during grant negotiations to enhance portfolio alignment.

In case of interest, please click on "m'interessa" and we will contact you.