Kick-off meeting: Yerevan, Armenia
Date: 13 October 2026
A new European Union-funded research project, ACTS – Accelerating Tobacco Cessation within Healthcare Systems of European LMICs, marks its official launch today as consortium partners gather in Yerevan, Armenia, to kick off efforts addressing one of the leading preventable drivers of non-communicable diseases: tobacco use. Funded under the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme (call: HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-DISEASE-06), the €4.7 million, five-year project runs from 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2031. It brings together 12 beneficiary organisations from nine European countries: Albania, Armenia, Belgium, Czechia, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Serbia and the United Kingdom. The project is coordinated by the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Germany.
Despite the availability of effective tobacco cessation interventions, cessation support is not yet systematically integrated into routine healthcare in many low- and middle-income countries. This implementation gap represents a major missed opportunity to prevent disease and premature death among people who smoke.
The ACTS project will address this gap by studying how evidence-based tobacco cessation services can be effectively integrated into primary and specialist healthcare systems and adapted to the realities of different national and healthcare contexts.
At the heart of ACTS is a large-scale, multi-country cluster randomised trial involving 34 primary and specialist healthcare sites and approximately 1,700 patients. The study will evaluate not only whether the intervention helps people stop smoking, but also how effectively it can be implemented in real-world healthcare settings.
“ACTS is designed to move beyond demonstrating that tobacco cessation works. Our goal is to understand how effective cessation support can become a sustainable and routine part of healthcare,” said ACTS Project Coordinator, Dr. Marcus Martens (UKE). “By working closely with healthcare professionals, patients and national stakeholders, we aim to develop solutions that are scientifically robust, practical and capable of being scaled up.”
Combining science, implementation and local expertise, ACTS will use a pragmatic Hybrid Type 2 implementation-effectiveness design, allowing the project to evaluate clinical outcomes alongside implementation outcomes.
The research will examine key dimensions such as reach, adoption, fidelity and cost, guided by the RE-AIM framework. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) will support the systematic and co-creative adaptation of the intervention to each participating country’s specific healthcare and policy context.
The intervention package will combine several evidence-based components, including:
A strong focus will be placed on health equity, ensuring that the benefits of tobacco cessation services can reach populations who may face greater barriers to accessing effective support.
A fundamental principle of the project is the establishment of an equitable partnership between partners from high-income and low- and middle-income countries.
The ACTS consortium brings together universities, public health institutions, research organisations and specialised tobacco-control organisations from across Europe. Scientific leadership, decision-making and intervention development will be shared across the consortium, with local expertise and experience of patients, clinicians and policymakers embedded throughout the project.
“In our countries, meaningful help to stop smoking is still too often missing from routine healthcare” said Co-Coordinator David Otiashvili (Ilia State University, Georgia). “A patient may visit a clinic for a breathing issue or high blood pressure, but leave without the practical tools or support to quit. The strength of ACTS lies in uniting international experience with our deep understanding of local clinics—building services that our healthcare systems can sustain and patients can easily access”. By pooling expertise in implementation science, health economics, and front-line clinical practice, this collaborative model ensures that all solutions remain practical, locally owned, sustainable, and directly tailored to the realities of healthcare in the focus countries.
ACTS will translate the knowledge generated through the project into practical resources for policymakers and healthcare systems. Among its key outputs will be a validated and scalable model for integrated tobacco cessation care, supported by an Implementation Playbook and a Policy Toolkit. These resources will provide practical guidance for healthcare providers, decision-makers and other stakeholders seeking to integrate and scale up tobacco cessation services at the national level.
The project aims to strengthen tobacco cessation services in participating low- and middle-income country settings while also generating implementation knowledge that can inform other European and international LMIC contexts facing similar challenges.
Smoking remains a major contributor to preventable illness and premature mortality and is closely linked to a wide range of chronic diseases. Strengthening cessation support within healthcare systems therefore represents an important opportunity to reduce the burden of NCDs while improving the quality and sustainability of healthcare delivery.
By bringing together implementation science, clinical research, digital innovation, health economics and local health-system expertise, ACTS aims to accelerate the transition from evidence to practice — helping ensure that people who smoke are routinely offered effective support to quit when they interact with healthcare services.
The ACTS project brings together the following 12 beneficiary organisations:
Together, these organisations bring complementary expertise and perspectives to the development, implementation and evaluation of sustainable tobacco cessation services across diverse healthcare settings.
Project: Accelerating Tobacco Cessation within Healthcare Systems of European LMICs: A Multi-Country Implementation-Effectiveness Trial (ACTS)
Project number: 101288379
Programme: Horizon Europe – Research and Innovation Action
Call: HORIZON-HLTH-2025-01-DISEASE-06
Project duration: 1 September 2026 – 31 August 2031
Coordinator: University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Germany
Consortium: 12 beneficiary organisations from nine European countries
Participating countries: Albania, Armenia, Belgium, Czechia, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Serbia and the United Kingdom
Study sites: 34 primary and specialist healthcare sites
Target recruitment: Approximately 1,700 patients
Contact name: Dr. Marcus Martens
E-mail: marcus.martens@uni-hamburg.de
Phone: +49 (40) 2395-23552
Web: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101288379
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
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