Horizon Europe is the EU's ninth framework programme for research and innovation, running from 2021 to 2027. Most competitive European research funding flows through it, from grants to a single researcher to multi-million consortium projects.
The budget is €93.5bn, not €95.5bn
€95.5bn is the figure you will find in most sources – it was the starting budget. In the February 2024 revision of the multiannual financial framework €2.1bn was moved out of the programme, with €100m of previously decommitted funds returned. The current figure is about €93.5bn, plus €5.4bn from NextGenerationEU.
Three pillars
Pillar I – Excellent Science (~€23.5bn): the ERC for frontier research (€15bn), MSCA for mobility and training (€6.3bn), research infrastructures (€2.2bn).
Pillar II – Global Challenges (~€47.4bn), the largest: applied research against societal challenges across six clusters. This is where most consortium calls sit.
Pillar III – Innovative Europe (~€11.9bn): the EIC (€8.8bn), innovation ecosystems and the EIT.
Alongside them sits Widening and the European Research Area (~€3.2bn) – the part most relevant to Ukrainian institutions.
Types of action and funding rates
100% of eligible costs: research and innovation actions, coordination and support actions, training and mobility actions, pre-commercial procurement.
70%: innovation actions and innovation-and-market-deployment actions. The exception people forget: non-profit legal entities may receive up to 100% even in an innovation action.
50%: public procurement of innovative solutions. 30–70%: programme co-fund actions.
Indirect costs are charged at a flat 25% of direct eligible costs, excluding subcontracting, financial support to third parties and amounts that already include indirect costs.
Minimum consortium
Research and innovation actions require three independent legal entities from three different countries, at least one established in an EU Member State and two others in different Member States or associated countries. Affiliated entities do not count towards the minimum.
But not everything needs a consortium: coordination and support actions, training and mobility actions, programme co-fund actions, every ERC scheme except Synergy, MSCA postdoctoral fellowships, and EIC Accelerator, Transition and Pathfinder Challenges are all single-applicant. The Hop-on Facility takes exactly two.
What changed in 2026–2027
This is the last work programme of the period, adopted on 11 December 2025 with a €14bn budget. Simplification is measurable: the programme is 33% shorter, topics are down 35%, and single-project topics halved.
Half the call budget runs through lump sums, mainly where grants stay below €10m. Page limits fell: 40 pages for a full proposal, 25 for a coordination action, 10 for stage one. Some short proposals are now assessed anonymously.
New: horizontal calls belonging to no cluster – R&I for the Clean Industrial Deal (~€540m) and AI in Science (~€90m, with at least €775m more for AI across the programme); the Choose Europe for Science initiative; the ERC Plus scheme; and a New European Bauhaus Facility of over €210m.
Competition and calendar
The programme-wide success rate is 16.4%, up from 12% in the predecessor. But the number worth remembering is different: 70% of proposals judged good enough go unfunded for lack of budget. The average grant is €2.9m.
Deadlines are always 17:00 Brussels time. Calls cluster in two seasons – spring (mid-March to mid-April) and autumn (September–October). Opening dates can shift by a month either way and deadlines by up to two, so check the call page rather than a guide.
Eight months are allowed from deadline to grant signature (245 days). The ERC is exempt.
Ukraine
Ukraine is an associated country with full access to every part of the programme. The agreement was signed on 12 October 2021, entered into force on 9 June 2022 and applies retroactively from 1 January 2021. In the official list of participating countries Ukraine appears without any reservation on the scope of participation – unlike Canada, Korea or the UK, which carry restrictions.
Ukraine's financial contribution for 2021–2022 was waived, and since 2024 a general suspension of Ukraine's payment obligations across all Union programmes has applied.
Beyond general calls, the 2026–2027 programme carries five Ukraine-specific topics. See Ukrainian participants.
Be careful with participation statistics: the only officially published static figures are from a Commission factsheet of November 2024 – 289 organisations and €58.64m in EU contribution. Newer numbers exist only in an interactive dashboard, so any "current" figure without a date and source is worth checking.
After 2027
The next programme starts 1 January 2028 and keeps the same name. "FP10" is journalistic shorthand; the official proposal calls it the tenth framework programme under the existing brand.
As of July 2026 this is a proposal, not adopted law. The Commission proposed €175bn in current prices (about €154.9bn in 2025 prices – the same number, different price base). The Council adopted partial approaches in June 2026 with all budget provisions bracketed; Parliament has no position yet, and its rapporteur proposes €220bn.
Guide sections
- EIC Accelerator: a grant plus an equity investment The EIC Accelerator is the largest EIC instrument, with a 2026 budget of around €634 million. It combines a grant of up to €2.5 million with a direct investment of €1 to €10 million in exchange for a stake taken by the EIC Fund. A single company applies, and selection runs through a short application, a full application and a jury interview.
- EIC Pathfinder: the earliest stage of a breakthrough technology EIC Pathfinder funds research into a breakthrough technology at the earliest stage, when no market prospect is yet visible. The 2026 budget for the strand is around €262 million, grants reach €4 million, the funding rate is 100% and the model is a lump sum.
- EIC Transition: from a result to market readiness EIC Transition funds taking an existing scientific result to a state fit for market entry. The 2026 budget for the strand is around €100 million, grants reach €2.5 million, and the entry ticket is a result from Pathfinder, ERC Proof of Concept or another eligible project.
- ERC: six frontier research schemes The European Research Council funds frontier research on a single criterion, scientific excellence, with no set topics, no consortium and no requirement of practical application. Six schemes: Starting, Consolidator, Advanced, ERC Plus, Synergy and Proof of Concept, from €150,000 to €10 million. Success rates in the 2025 calls were around 10–12%.
- Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions: mobility programmes Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fund people rather than topics: researcher mobility, doctoral programmes and training. Payments are made at fixed monthly unit rates rather than against actual costs, and both individual researchers and institutions can apply.
- Pillar 2: Clusters – 6 thematic clusters The clusters are the six thematic areas of Horizon Europe Pillar 2, funding applied research against specific societal challenges: health; culture and society; civil security; digital, industry and space; climate, energy and mobility; food, bioeconomy and environment. This is where the bulk of consortium calls sits.
- Pillar 3: European Innovation Council (EIC) The European Innovation Council is the part of Horizon Europe for high-risk breakthrough innovation, from early idea to market. Its distinguishing feature is blended finance – a grant alongside a direct equity investment in the company – and most of its instruments are applied for by a single company rather than a consortium.
- Widening Programme: opportunities for Ukraine Widening is the strand of Horizon Europe created to close the participation gap between countries with different research capacity. Ukraine is a Widening country, so Ukrainian institutions may coordinate Twinning, ERA Chairs and Excellence Hubs projects, and join already-funded consortia through the Hop-on Facility.
- Horizon Europe budget calculator The Horizon Europe budget rules define which costs may be charged to a grant and how: personnel by actual salary and productive hours, equipment by depreciation in proportion to project use, plus subcontracting and indirect costs at a flat rate. Knowing them at proposal stage decides whether your budget survives evaluation.
- Submitting an application: the Funding & Tenders Portal step by step Applying to an EU call runs through the Funding & Tenders Portal as a sequence of steps: an EU Login account, registering the organisation to obtain a PIC, choosing a topic, preparing Parts A and B of the proposal, and submitting through the system before the call closes. Each step has its own timing and requirements, and underestimating them is what most often derails a last-day submission.
- Structure of a successful application: Excellence, Impact, Implementation A Horizon Europe proposal is assessed against three criteria, and Part B mirrors them: Excellence – how ambitious the objectives and how convincing the methodology; Impact – what change it brings and how that is measured; Implementation – whether the work plan, roles and budget are realistic. What an evaluator looks for matters more than length.
- Ukrainian participants: statistics and cases Ukraine participates in Horizon Europe as an associated country with full access to every part of the programme, and the national financial contribution is currently suspended. Ukrainian institutions may coordinate projects, and separate mechanisms support displaced researchers and deep-tech companies.
- Common mistakes and reasons for application rejection Most Horizon Europe proposals are rejected not for a weak idea but for predictable failures: drifting from the topic scope, unmeasurable expected results, a consortium duplicating expertise instead of complementing it, and a work plan that does not match the narrative. Learning this list beats waiting a year for the next call.
Open calls now
All calls of this programme in the GetGrant catalogue →Data current as of 27.07.2026. Verify the terms with the donor’s official portal before applying.
Sources
- HE Work Programme 2026-2027, General Introduction · 27.07.2026
- HE Work Programme 2026-2027, General Annexes · 27.07.2026
- Regulation (EU) 2021/695 (consolidated) · 27.07.2026
- Mid-term evaluation of Horizon Europe, SWD(2025) 110 · 27.07.2026
- List of Participating Countries V3.9 · 27.07.2026
