Twelve projects awarded in the implementation round of the Dutch Efficiency Research program

The Efficiency Research program of the Dutch Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) aims to develop socially relevant, high-quality knowledge on the effectiveness and costs of innovative and existing non-pharmaceutical diagnostic and therapeutic interventions within the basic insurance package or long-term care. 

The following types of projects are eligible for the Efficiency Research program:

• The project provides knowledge about the effectiveness and costs of non-pharmacotherapeutic interventions;
• The project is a comparison of intervention with standard care;
• The project concerns comparative research into interventions with proven safety and plausible efficacy.

In January 2026, 14 projects were awarded subsidies from the “Implementation round 3” of the Efficiency Research program, including the MedTech projects in e-health, gastrointestinal, oncology, neurosurgery, IVD, and cardiovascular fields.

Examples of the awarded projects include:

• “BLOEI: Broad Airlift Scale-Up and Effective Implementation” concerning the digital application (Luchtbrug by Radboud University Medical Center) that helps parents of children with asthma/allergy manage their condition;
• CALM – Calprotectin as Leading Agent concerning fecal calprotectin test to detect or exclude inflammatory bowel disease;
• Implementation of the SOUND and INSEMA study results in patients with early-stage breast cancer concerning the de-implementation of sentinel lymph node biopsy in patients with early-stage breast cancer;
• National implementation of MRI instead of laparoscopy for colorectal peritoneal metastases.

The subsidy round was intended for projects aimed at the (de-)implementation, dissemination, or transfer of knowledge and structural embedding of non-pharmacotherapeutic interventions in practice. The projects will start in the first half of 2026.

See the full details in Dutch here.

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