"The challenges for healthcare systems and healthcare Research and Development (R&D) have increased significantly over the past two decades. For Europe these challenges have also been accentuated by the global financial crisis. Most of the member states of the EU face a wide variety of healthcare problems most of which revolve around the ageing population. These parameters pose a continuous challenge in developing effective strategies for research for the next decade particularly when the severe financial crisis has led to a dramatic decrease in research budgets across Europe. The 2020 strategy of the EU calls for an ""Innovation Union"" to improve framework conditions and access to finance for research and innovation so as to ensure that innovative ideas can be turned into products and services that create growth and jobs. In this framework we propose the organisation of a conference under the Cyprus Presidency in 2012 called ‘Open Innovation for Health: A Strategy for 2020. The conference will gather scientific, industrial, political and societal stakeholders with the aim to creating a forum for a focused debate on the role that Open Innovation (OI) can play in tackling major bottlenecks in the area of Health research. This conference will be adjoined with the 2012 Stakeholders Forum of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) thus ensuring widest possible dissemination. The main deliverable of the Conference will be a policy paper to be submitted to the Competiveness Council of Ministers during the discussions of the formulation of FP8 in December 2012."