Horizon Europe is the 9th EU framework-programme for research and innovation (2021-2027) for a green, healthy, digital and inclusive Europe, with a budget of €95.5 billion.

It represents the largest collaborative multinational research and innovation investment in Europe and is open to participants worldwide. The European Union undertakes an investment of this magnitude because research and innovation is essential for finding new solutions to the challenges we are facing – and because the challenges are of such a magnitude that they cannot be addressed by one country alone. Research and innovation generates new opportunities, helps to tackle climate change, supports sustainable economic growth and the competitiveness of businesses and industries, and provides better public services for all Europeans. Research and innovation allows us to shape the future and the reality in which we want to live.

It tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth. The programme facilitates collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges. It supports creating and better dispersing of excellent knowledge and technologies.

Horizon Europe EC factsheet

Horizon Europe Funding and Tenders Opportunities Portal

Horizon 2020 was the EU’s research and innovation funding programme from 2014-2020 with a budget of nearly €80 billion. The programme has been succeeded by Horizon Europe.

Details and links to further information can be found here.

Guidance and reference documents relating to Horizon 2020 are available here.

A NCP system is a structure set in place at national level for NCPs to provide information and advice on the EU R&I Framework Programmes in a Member State, associated or non-associated third country. You can find a list of NCPs per country and per function on the Funding & Opportunities Portal.

A NCP is a specialised advisor nominated by his or her national authority and the European Commission to provide support to potential applicants, applicants or participants in the scope of his or her NCP system. NCP Brussels is the national contact point for Horizon Europe in the Brussels-Capital Region. It is one of the five NCP systems in Belgium:

• NCP Brussels addresses all type of actors established in the Brussels-Capital willing to apply to any part of the programme, except the European Research Council (ERC) and the Marie Slodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) in the 1^st pillar “Excellent Science”..
• NCP Federal addresses the federal public actors of Belgium.
• NCP Flanders addresses all type of actors established in Flanders as well as the public actors based in Brussels.
• NCP Wallonie addresses all type of actors established in Wallonia.
• NCP FNRS addresses higher education establishments of the Communauté Française Wallonie-Bruxelles.

NCP FNRS provides support to higher education establishments under the Communauté Française Wallonie-Bruxelles, including the French-speaking schools and universities of Brussels.

NCP Flanders provides support to higher education establishments under the Flemish Community, including the Flemish schools and universities of Brussels.

The main factors determining whether an enterprise is an SME are the staff headcount and either the turnover or the balance sheet total. Refer to the  EU SME definition, The revised user guide to the SME definition (2020) (2 MB, available in all EU languages), and The SME self-assessment tool which you can use to determine whether your organisation qualifies as a small and medium-sized enterprise

Applicants must have stable and sufficient resources to successfully implement the projects and contribute their share. Organisations participating in several projects must have sufficient capacity to implement all these projects. The financial capacity check will be done on the basis of the documents uploaded in the Participant Register during the grant preparation stage (e.g. profit and loss account and balance sheet, business plan, audit report produced by an approved external auditor, certifying the accounts for the last closed financial year, etc.). The analysis will be based on neutral financial indicators, but will also take into account other aspects, such as dependency on EU funding and deficit and revenue in previous years.

More info on the Financial and operational capacity and exclusion in the General Annexes of the Main Work Programme 2023-2024, in the EIC Work Programme 2023 or the ERC Work Programme 2023.

The assessment of operational capacity will be carried out during the evaluation of the award criterion ‘Quality and efficiency of the implementation’. It will be based on the competence and experience of the applicants and their project teams, including their operational resources (human, technical and other) or, exceptionally, the measures proposed to obtain the necessary competence and experience by the time the tasks are implemented.

More info on the Financial and operational capacity and exclusion in the General Annexes of the Main Work Programme 2023-2024, in the EIC Work Programme 2023 or the ERC Work Programme 2023.

Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations can participate in a project under Horizon Europe, provided that the conditions laid down in this Regulation have been met together with any conditions laid down in the work programme or call.

Eligibility conditions depend on the type of actions.

Entities shall be part of a consortium that shall include at least three independent legal entities each established in a different Member State or associated country and with at least one of them established in a MS, unless the work programme provides otherwise, if duly justified.

Applications for ‘Training and mobility’ actions and for ‘Programme co-fund’ actions may be submitted by one or more legal entities, provided that one of those legal entities is established in a Member State or an Associated Country.

Applications for ‘Coordination and support’ actions may be submitted by one or more legal entities, which may be established in a Member State, Associated Country or, in exceptional cases and if provided for in the specific call conditions, in another third country.

Applications for ‘Pre-commercial procurement’ actions and ‘Public procurement of innovative solutions’ actions must include as beneficiaries a ‘buyers’ group’. This group must consist of a minimum of two independent legal entities that are public procurers 12, each established in a different Member State or Associated Country and with at least one of them established in a Member State.

Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call conditions,

Applicants for mono-beneficiary actions must be established in a Member State or Associated Country (e.g. a SME, start-up or spin-off can apply for EIC Accelerator).

Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call conditions, general eligibility conditions apply. Applications for EIC Pathfinder Challenge and EIC Transition may be submitted as well by multi-beneficiary comprising of two legal entities, provided that those two legal entities are established in two different Member States or Associated countries.

For more information on the EIC, visit the EIC page or contact your NCP EIC.

The idea should be perfectly aligned with the topic description, its expected outcome, scope, specific conditions and cross-cutting priorities. A proposal that does not fit the scope and expected outcome of a topic will not be selected for funding as it will be considered irrelevant to the specific call.

Please contact us to clarify if and where your project idea can be positioned in a part of the programme.  Get in touch with us and have your project idea assessed by a dedicated NCP.

Proposals submitted to EU framework programmes for Research & Innovation must have a European impact. The consortium generally has to be composed of at least three entities coming from three different Member States or Associated Countries. If your project idea is focusing on national or regional challenges only, national or regional funding might be more appropriate. Cf. Belspo  or Innoviris.

There is no rule nor indicative duration recommended in the calls (average, minimum or maximum). The project objective, ambition, strategy, methodology and work plan should be sound and consistent to meet the objective and deliver the expected results and impacts. The applications are assessed against 3 evaluation quality criteria (excellence, impact, quality and efficiency of implementation) and need to score high in all of them to get selected for funding.

You can find an indicative amount that the EC considers to be suitable as an EC contribution for each call topic. This value should serve as guideline when you set-up your budget, even though you can submit a proposal with a lower or higher requested EC contribution. Besides the evaluation criteria impact and excellence, all applications should show evidence of a high quality and efficiency of implementation. They need to score high in all the three criteria to get selected for funding.

In Horizon 2020, these were called “linked third parties”. Affiliated entities have a link (e.g. legal or capital) with a beneficiary which goes beyond the implementation of the action.

They don’t sign the Grant Agreement but are in practice treated largely like beneficiaries. They must fulfil the same conditions for participation and funding as the beneficiaries and need to have a validated PIC (participant identification code).

Associated Partners and Third parties giving in-kind contributions normally do not get any part of the grant money and will therefore have to organise other funding sources (bear their own costs, internal reallocation of funding inside the consortium, find investors, etc.)

Subcontracting should normally constitute a limited part of the project and will need to be justified. Tasks may NOT be subcontracted inside the consortium (between Beneficiaries or Affiliated Entities).

Each role is linked to a set of conditions and legal rights and obligations that are relatively rigid. Make sure that you chose the appropriate role for everyone. Having the wrong role can cause a lot of problems later on.

The core criterium for distinguishing between subcontracts and contracts/purchases is whether it concerns an action task as set out in the description of the action (Annex 1 of the Grant Agreement).

In contrast to subcontractors, affiliated entities have a link (e.g. legal or capital) with a beneficiary which goes beyond the implementation of the action.

If necessary for the implementation of the action, associated partners implementing their own tasks may also support beneficiaries and affiliated entities in the implementation of their tasks by providing in-kind contributions.

Third parties giving in-kind contribution + Subcontractor: It is in principle possible for a third party giving in-kind contributions in support of certain parts of the action to also compete for subcontracts for other parts of the same action. If, in accordance with the criteria for awarding subcontracts (best value for money or lowest price, no conflict of interest), a third party already giving in-kind contributions gives the best offer, it may also participate as a subcontractor.

Recipients of financial support to third parties + Any other role: Recipients of financial support to third parties must normally be third parties to the agreement. Beneficiaries are not allowed to provide financial support under the grant agreement to themselves or their affiliated entities. However, certain exceptions may be made if provided for in the Grant Agreement. In contrast, in the case of third parties providing inkind contributions as well as subcontractors, assuming that the financial support is not directly related to their tasks, they are considered third parties to the agreement and may therefore in principle receive financial support to third parties under the conditions set out in the grant agreement.

‘programme co-fund action’ means an action to provide multi-annual co-funding to a programme of activities established or implemented by legal entities managing or funding R&I programmes, other than Union funding bodies; such a programme of activities may support networking and coordination, research, innovation, pilot actions, and innovation and market deployment actions, training and mobility actions, awareness raising and communication, dissemination and exploitation, and provide any relevant financial support, such as grants, prizes and procurement, as well as Horizon Europe blended finance or a combination thereof. The programme co-fund action may be implemented by those legal entities directly or by third parties on their behalf

Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment and including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations, may participate in actions under Horizon Europe, as coordinator or partner.

The 27 Member States of the European Union and in Associated Countries are eligible for funding.  Associated Countries are those who have signed a specific agreement with the EU. The list is available here. Participants from non-associated non-EU countries can take part in Horizon Europe actions — but not always with funding. Participants from the following low- to middle-income countries are automatically eligible for funding.

There are a few exceptions where more countries can get funding due to the specific nature of the topic:

• When a funding is explicitly foreseen in the Call check the topic description carefully;
• When funding is provided under a bilateral scientific and technological agreement or any other arrangement between the Union and an international organization or a third country.

Besides these exceptions, a number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. This guide includes specific information for each of these countries. The following third countries have made complementary funding mechanisms : Australia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, China, South-Korea, Russia and Switzerland (v1.0 1.03.2022)

Entities subject to EU restrictive measures under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU)8 and entities covered by Commission Guidelines No 2013/C 205/059 are NOT eligible to participate in any capacity (including as beneficiaries, affiliated entities, associated partners, third parties giving in-kind contributions, subcontractors or recipients of financial support to third parties, if any).

The Russian Federation, as a non-EU/non-Associated Countries, among other countries that are not automatically eligible for funding, have made specific provisions for making made complementary funding mechanisms for their legal entities participating to Horizon Europe projects.

While these provisions were published on 1st March 2022, on 3rd March 2022, The European Commission has decided not to engage into further cooperation projects with Russian entities and has therefore decided to suspend the preparations of grant agreements for Horizon Europe projects involving Russian research organisations until further notice. Any payments to Russian entities under existing H2020 contracts are suspended.

While any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment and including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations, may participate in actions under Horizon Europe, exceptions can be found, at the level of Work Programmes, specific calls for proposals or topics in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States. Cf. Art. 22 (5) of HE Framework Programme Regulation or contact your L&F NCP for more information on its application.

Moreover, where appropriate and duly justified, the work programme may provide for eligibility criteria in addition to those to take into account specific policy requirements or the nature and objectives of the action, including the number of legal entities, the type of legal entity and the place of establishment.

Horizon Europe is the most open and by far the largest research and innovation programme globally. Association of non-EU countries to the programme is one of the key vehicles to ensure this openness.

As of December 2021, Norway, Iceland, Turkey, Moldova, Israel, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Georgia and Serbia have applicable association agreements in place. Association agreements have also been signed with Armenia, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo*. They are currently undergoing national ratification procedures and are expected to enter into force shortly.

Association negotiations have been concluded with Albania, the Faroe Islands and Tunisia. The agreements are yet to be signed.

The United Kingdom will be associated by means of a Protocol to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Association negotiations with Morocco and exploratory talks with Canada are progressing.

You can follow the progress towards association to Horizon Europe on the following links: Regularly updated progress on association talks; Progress towards association to Horizon Europe.

For all activities funded, ethics is an integral part of research from beginning to end, and ethical compliance is essential to achieve real research excellence. An ethics review process is carried out systematically in all Horizon Europe proposals, based on a self-assessment included in the proposal.

Ethical research conduct implies the application of fundamental ethical principles and legislation in all possible domains of research. This includes the adherence to the  highest standards of research integrity as described in the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.

Cf.  HE Programme guide and Online Manual, guidelines to identify serious and complex ethics issues in EU-funded research or contact the NCP Coordinator or NCP L&F for more information.

The manner in which an AI solution is deployed or used may change the ethical characteristics of the system. It is therefore important to ensure ethics compliance even in cases where your project does not develop itself an AI based system/technique. A Proposal for a Regulation laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act) is currently pending adoption by the EU legislator. This Regulation, when it enters into force, may have effect on your project activities. Before its adoption and entry into force, we strongly encourage beneficiaries to use the Assessment List for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (ALTAI) to develop procedures to detect, assess the level and address potential risks.

Security issues will be checked systematically in all Horizon Europe proposals (in H2020 only proposals submitted to topics flagged as ‘security sensitive’ were checked). The checks are based on a self-assessment included in the proposal. The focus is on:

• Whether the proposal uses or generates EU classified information
• Potential of misuse of results (that could be channelled into crime or terrorism)
• Whether activities involve information or materials subject to national security restrictions

The checks based on the self-assessment may trigger an in depth security scrutiny.

Cf. HE Programme guide and Online Manual, guidelines on How to handle security-sensitive projects or contact the NCP Coordinator or NCP L&F for more information.

Gender equality is a strengthened crosscutting priority in Horizon Europe, as fostering a “Union of Equality” is a priority of Ursula Von der Leyen.

Gender Equality Plan has become an eligibility criterion applicable from 2022 onwards for public bodies, research organisations, higher education institutions established in a Member State or Associated Country. These must have a GEP in place, fulfilling mandatory process-related requirements.

Integration of the gender dimension is an award criteria across the whole programme. Addressing the gender dimension in research and innovation entails taking into account sex and gender in the whole research & innovation process. Under Horizon Europe the integration of the gender dimension into R&I content is mandatory unless the topic description explicitly states otherwise.

Gender balance is a ranking criteria. Gender balance among personnel named in the proposal who will be primarily responsible for carrying out the research and/or innovation activities, and who are included in the researchers table in the proposal will be considered (3^rd in the priority order) to rank Ex-aequo proposals.

1. EC factsheet on the Key Gender Equality provisions under Horizon Europe or contact the NCP Coordinator or NCP L&F for more information.