Horizon Europe

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

What is
Horizon Europe ?

Horizon Europe is the EU research and innovation programme (2021-2027) with a budget of €95.5 billion for a green, healthy, digital and inclusive Europe. It aims to build a knowledge- and innovation-based society and a competitive economy while at the same time contributing to sustainable development.
Horizon Europe supports excellent science by teaming up with the best talent and equipping them with world-class infrastructures. Moreover, it supports breakthrough innovations and helps to create new services and markets. Research and innovation provide new knowledge and innovative solutions to overcome our societal, ecological, and economic challenges.

Compared to the previous Horizon 2020 program, there is a lot of continuity in Horizon Europe. The main novelties are the institutionalization of the European Innovation Council (EIC), the introduction of a “strategic planning process“, the “missions” and a new approach to European Partnerships.

The first pillar keeps driving excellent science as in Horizon 2020, the second one tackles global challenges and European industrial competitiveness, and the third one is designed to foster the Union’s industrial competitiveness and its innovation performance.

The largest share of the overall budget will fund activities in the second pillar that tackle societal challenges, and reinforce technological and industrial capacities, ensure that Europe stays at the cutting-edge in strategically defined priorities. The second pillar contains 6 clusters that should incentivize Cross-disciplinary, cross-sectoral, cross-policy, and cross-border collaboration, including SSH & citizens engagement in pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals.

The third pillar aims at stimulating market-creating breakthroughs and ecosystems conducive to innovation through 3 main components:

  • The European Innovation Council (EIC) European supports innovations with breakthrough and market-creating potential;
  • The European Innovation Ecosystems (EIE) programme connects regional and national innovation actors and sustains their scale-up;
  • The European Institute of Technology (EIT) brings key actors (research, education and business) together around a common goal for nurturing innovation.

The horizontal activity widening and ERA has 2 components: it supports access to excellence for researchers across Europe, to foster participation and collaboration, while it promotes gender equality, open access, and open science, R&I integrity, and Ethics.

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How does it work?

Work programmes arising out from the Strategic Planning Process announce the specific research and innovation areas that will be funded. The calls for proposals, organized in the work programmes by destinations, are accessible through the one-stop-shop Funding and Tenders Portal. Each call gives more precise information on the research and innovation issues that you should address in your proposals. On the Funding and Tenders Portal of the European Commission, we advise you to use the filters available for your search:

  • Keywords
  • Submission Status (forthcoming, open, close)
  • By programme
  • Or by call for tender

Activities eligible for funding

– Type of actions

Research and Innovation Action (RIA)

EU funding rate – 100%

Activities geared towards establishing new knowledge and/or exploring the viability of a new or improved technology, product, process, service, or solution. This can include basic and applied research, technology development and integration, testing and validation on small-scale prototype(s) in a laboratory or simulated environment. These projects can have closely connected but limited demonstration or pilot activities with the goal of displaying technical feasibility in a near to operational environment.

There’s also Research and Innovation Lump Sum actions (RIA-LS). These receive their funding for any grants they’ve been awarded as lump sums.

Innovation Action (IA)

EU funding rate – 100% for non-profit and 70% for all others

Activities aimed directly at producing plans and arrangements; or designs for new, altered, or improved products, processes, or services. This can include prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication.

There’s also Innovation Lump Sum actions (IA-LS). These receive their funding for any grants they’ve been awarded as lump sums.

Coordination & Support Actions (CSA)

These are accompanying measures such as standardisation, dissemination, awareness-raising and communication, networking, coordination or support services, policy dialogues and mutual learning exercises and studies.

There’s also Coordination and support Lump Sum actions (CSA-LS). These receive their funding for any grants they’ve been awarded as lump sums.

Programme co-fund actions (CoFund)

A programme of activities established or implemented by legal entities managing or funding R&I programmes, other than EU funding bodies.

Innovation and market deployment actions (IMDA)

Activities that embed an innovation action and other activities necessary to deploy an innovation on the market. (EIC)

Training and mobility actions (TMA)

Activities that aim to improve the skills, knowledge and career prospects of researchers, based on mobility between countries and, if relevant, between sectors or disciplines. (MSCA)

Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP)

These enable the public sector as a technologically demanding buyer to encourage research and development of pivotal solutions that would radically improve quality and efficiency in areas of public interest, while also creating market opportunities for industry and researchers.

The requested reimbursement of the estimated eligible costs of coordination and networking activities should not exceed 30% of the requested grant. Indirect eligible costs are calculated as a flat rate of 25% of direct eligible costs, excluding direct eligible costs for subcontracting (e.g the price of the PCP procurement) and costs of resources made available by third parties which are not used on the premises of the beneficiary (e.g test equipment).

Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions Actions (PPI)

This aids the early deployment of innovative solutions that address challenges of public interest. The goal is to enable trans-national groups of procurers to share the risks of acting as early adopters of innovative solutions and to overcome the fragmentation of demand for innovative solutions in Europe. Each PPI action focuses on one defined, unmet, and shared need that of the participating procurers that requires innovative solutions, which are significantly similar across countries and can be procured jointly.

The requested reimbursement of the estimated eligible costs of coordination and networking activities should not exceed 50% of the requested grant. Indirect eligible costs are calculated as a flat rate of 25% of direct eligible costs, excluding direct eligible costs for subcontracting (e.g. the price of the PPI procurement) and the costs of resources made available by third parties (e.g. test equipment) which are not used on the premises of the beneficiary.

Get financial support in Brussels from Innoviris, the Brussels Institute for Research and Innovation, to set up your international R&D project!

Horizon Europe | The EU Research & Innovation Programme (2021-2027)

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7th Statistics report on Brussels-Capital Region's participation in Research & Innovation programme Horizon 2020 (English)

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Horizon Europe
is a very large and
complex programme. This is why NCP Brussels is here to support you.

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