AGENCE NATIONALE DE SANTE PUBLIQUE

Their core work

Santé publique France is the French national public health agency, responsible for disease surveillance, health monitoring, and epidemic response across France. In H2020 projects, they contribute epidemiological expertise, population health data, and biomonitoring capabilities — serving as a national data hub for European-scale health studies. Their work spans from tracking chemical exposures in human populations to coordinating COVID-19 surveillance networks and evaluating vaccine effectiveness across multiple countries.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their early H2020 period (2015–2018), Santé publique France focused on chemical exposure monitoring — human biomonitoring, endocrine disruptors, exposure biomarkers — alongside foundational One Health and vaccine effectiveness work. From 2018 onward, their focus shifted decisively toward infectious disease response (COVID-19 surveillance networks), personalized medicine (genetics-driven breast cancer screening), and health data infrastructure. This evolution mirrors France's national pivot from environmental health monitoring toward pandemic preparedness and digital health systems.

Moving toward population health data infrastructure and rapid-response epidemiological networks — expect growing interest in health data interoperability and cross-border surveillance platforms.

How they like to work

Santé publique France never coordinates H2020 projects — they consistently join as a participant or third party, contributing national-level data and epidemiological expertise to large European consortia. With 243 unique partners across 38 countries, they operate as a well-connected national node in broad multinational networks rather than leading small focused teams. This makes them an accessible partner: they bring authoritative French public health data and institutional credibility without competing for coordination roles.

Extensively networked across 38 countries with 243 unique consortium partners, reflecting their role as a national anchor institution in pan-European health initiatives. Their partnerships span public health agencies, universities, and hospitals across virtually all EU member states.

What sets them apart

As France's official national public health agency, Santé publique France brings something few partners can offer: authoritative, population-scale health data covering 67 million people, plus the institutional mandate to act on it. They combine environmental health monitoring (biomonitoring, chemical exposure) with infectious disease surveillance — a rare dual competence valuable for projects spanning both domains. For consortium builders, partnering with them signals governmental legitimacy and guarantees access to French national health datasets.

Highlights from their portfolio

• HBM4EU
  Europe's flagship human biomonitoring initiative — one of the largest coordinated efforts to measure chemical exposure across EU populations.
• I-MOVE-COVID-19
  Rapid-response pandemic surveillance network that became operationally critical during COVID-19, demonstrating the agency's capacity for emergency mobilization.
• MyPeBS
  Ambitious international randomized trial running until 2027, testing whether genetics-based personalized breast cancer screening outperforms standard approaches.