Horizont Europe

Horizon Europe consists of four pillars and 15 components. The program will support all areas of research and innovation: excellent science, global challenges and industrial competitiveness, innovative Europe, and the widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area, seen through:

Widening participation and spreading excellence

Reforming and enhancing the European Research and Innovation system

exclusive focus on defence research and development:

European Defence Fund website

focus on nuclear fusion and fission research and training:

Euratom Research and Training Programme

Horizon Europe incorporates research and innovation missions to increase the effectiveness of funding by pursuing clearly defined targets. 5 missions have been identified.

Funding opportunities under Horizon Europe are set out in work programmes.

All funding information and procedures on how to apply are on the Funding and Tenders portal.

The content of work programmes for Horizon Europe is prepared by strategic planning and the resultant strategic plan.

Horizon Europe supports European partnerships in which the EU, national authorities and/or the private sector jointly commit to support the development and implementation of a programme of research and innovation activities.

The goal of European partnerships is to contribute to the achievement of EU priorities, address complex challenges outlined in Horizon Europe and strengthen the European Research Area (ERA).

Partnerships are divided into three types depending on the way they function:

Co-funded European Partnerships;

Co-programmed European Partnerships;

Institutionalised European Partnerships.

Read more about the different kinds of partnerships

Horizon Europe has a budget of EUR 95.5 billion for the period from 2021-2027. This includes EUR 5.4 billion from the Next Generation EU instrument, particularly to support the green and digital recovery from the COVID crisis.

The budget is divided amongst four pillars and 15 components.

Find a suitable call for proposal

The European Commission and its funding bodies publish calls for proposals on the Funding & Tenders Portal.

Search options:

• from the home page by entering different keywords that characterize best your field of interest, and then refine the results with the help of further filters;
• from the EU funding programmes listed on the home page, and then navigate via the quick links to the calls for proposals of a specific programme;
• select a topic to read more about the identified opportunity: the topic-related documents, guidance and other instructions are available on a topic page;
• on calls for proposals and tenders of the European institutions.

Find project partners (optional)

Read the topic conditions to assess the partnership and other eligibility requirements of a call.

Search options:

• to publish your partner search request or offer;
• the Partner Search offered on the Funding & Tenders Portal to select an organisation based on their profile or their previous participation;
• partner Search tools and services (a list of recommended support sites is offered under the Helpdesks & Support Services page);
• conferences, brokerage events organised by the EU or networks in the Member States (National Contact Points or Desks, Enterprise Europe Network, etc.)

Most of the calls for EU grants target multi-beneficiary consortia made up of participants from different countries — to enhance the EU added value, promote cooperation between organisations in different countries, reinforce the quality of applications and ensure fair competition and equal opportunities throughout the EU.

Some programmes formalise this, by adding specific requirements for the consortium composition (e.g. Horizon Europe, etc.)

Create an EU Login account

Each user has to have an EU Login account to log in on the Funding & Tenders Portal.

Register an organisation

If you want to participate in a project proposal, your organisation needs to be registered and have a 9-digit Participant Identification Code (PIC).

Check if your organisation is already registered, or register it.

Submit grant proposal

Select your topic and go to the Submission Service section of the topic page (make sure that you select the correct type of action before you start drafting a proposal; the link to the submission system is available, if the status of the call is 'open').

Proposals must be submitted electronically using the Submission System on the Funding & Tenders Portal.

Access to the Submission System is available through the Topic page on the Portal> Start Submission.

Proposals must be created and submitted by a contact person of the coordinating organisation (exceptions exist for some programmes/types of action which are fully focused on individuals).

The Submission wizard will guide you step-by-step through the process. You will need to use the online forms and templates available in the Submission System.

Sources:

How to participate ( Funding & Tenders Portal)

Online Manual Funding & tender opportunities

On the Funding & Tenders Portal most calls are divided into topics.

Call — Group of topics that are open in parallel and address the same policy domain.

Topic — Part of a call with one opening and closing date. The proposals submitted to the topic will be evaluated together and compete against each other.

The Search funding & tenders page will display the list of open topics; the name of the call they belong to is visible on the Topic page.

A topic is considered open until the deadline for submission has passed (call deadline). Each topic will specify deadlines and/or cut-off dates.

Deadline models:

• Single-stage (a full proposal by the call deadline);
• Two-stage (2-stage submission procedure: a short outline proposal for stage 1 and then a full proposal only if you are invited to stage 2);
• Multiple cut-off (some topics are continuously open, where you can submit a proposal at any time, and cut-off dates mean that all proposals received by a given cut-off date will be evaluated after that deadline).

Types of action designate funding schemes, i.e. calls with the same characteristics: policy domain (scope of funded activities), award criteria, reimbursement rate and in some cases form of funding (budget-based grant, lump sum grant, unit grant, prize, procurement, debt and equity facility, etc.)

The types of action depend on each EU programme.

There are two main types: action grants (for projects) and operating grants (to support organisations and their running costs).

However, especially larger programmes have developed their own specific set of types of action, for instance:

Horizon Europe: Research and Innovation Actions, Innovation Actions, Coordination and Support Actions, Pre-commercial Procurements, Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions, etc.

Source: Online Manual “Funding & tender opportunities”, Search funding opportunities — Find a call

The roles should be attributed according to the level of participation in the project:

• main participants should participate as Beneficiaries or Affiliated Entities (former Linked Third Parties);
• other entities can participate as Associated Partners, Subcontractors, Third parties giving in-kind contributions, etc.

Associated Partners and Third parties giving in-kind contributions 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).

The Coordinator is responsible for managing the project, submitting reports and deliverables and acting as intermediary for all contacts with the EU Granting Authority.

The other Beneficiaries must implement their part of the project and contribute to the grant administration (preparing the grant, reporting, etc.)

Source: Online Manual “Funding & tender opportunities”, Apply with partners or as individuals

EU Login provides a single sign-on to a large number of services and tools available on the Funding & Tenders Portal.

Creating an EU Login account:

1. Go to the Register page on the Funding & Tenders Portal and enter:

• your first name, last name and e-mail address;
• the displayed security code.

2. Select Create an account

You will receive an e-mail to the address that you specified, containing a link you should use to complete the registration process.

3. Click the link you will be asked to choose and confirm a password.

4. Go back to the homepage of the Funding & Tenders Portal/

5. Click on Login and log in with your registered e-mail (user name) address and password.

Your EU Login account gives you only general access to My Area, but it will NOT yet give you access to project/contract data of your organisation. This access depends on your roles and access rights.

Source: Online Manual “Funding & tender opportunities”, EU Login

Before submitting an application, all participants involved in the proposal must first be registered in the Funding & Tenders Portal Participant Register and have their 9-digit Participant Identification Code (PIC)— to be used in your online application form and further correspondence with the EU services.

To register your organisation, you will need to provide basic administrative and legal information, in addition to contact details.

Important: As the information provided will be checked with supporting documents later, it is useful to have the relevant documents at hand during and after the registration is complete.

In order to avoid creating duplicate PICs, you should first check whether your organisation (or another department) is already registered in the Funding & Tenders Portal and use that PIC:

Go to How to Participate > Participant Register > Search a PIC > Search a PIC and put in your organisation data. (сheck several variants to make sure there is really no entry).

If no PIC is registered, start registration:

Go to How to Participate > Participant Register > Register your organisation.

The Registration wizard will guide you step-by-step through the process. Detailed explanations are available in the IT How To.

The newly created PIC will be provisional (declared/non-valid status) until it is formally validated at a later stage (validation process).

You do not need to complete the registration process in a single session. You can enter some information, save it and continue later on. To resume your registration, go to My Organisations > Continue Registration. Incomplete draft registrations are automatically deleted after one year.

If you create by mistake a new PIC, see Data updates.

Source: Online Manual “Funding & tender opportunities”, Registration and validation of your organisation

Get prepared: Finding your topic > Find partners > Plan your work and budget

Electronic proposal submission:

Get an EU Login account > Get a PIC number (Participant Register) > Launch Submission wizard > Pre-register your draft proposal > List participants, contact persons > Fill in Administrative Forms (Part A); Upload Technical Description (Part B) > Submit your proposal > Acknowledgement of receipt.

Proposals are submitted using the application forms available in the Submission System.

The application form is structured in into two parts, Parts A and B:

Part A: contains the structured Administrative Forms with data on the participants, legal declarations and contact persons (retrieved from the Submission System screens); it may also include some programme-specific questions: is generated while entering the data into the Submission System.

Part B (the narrative part): Technical Description of the project with the planned activities, work packages, costs, etc. (must be uploaded as PDF); needs to be prepared in advance (using the template downloaded from the system; do NOT use the standard template from the Topic page); will also include annexes and supporting documents if required by the call conditions (detailed budget table, declarations from national authorities, CVs, annual activity reports, etc.)

Source: Online Manual “Funding & tender opportunities”, Submit a proposal — Electronic Submission System