Horizon Europe
Horizon Europe is the European Union's new framework program for research and innovation. During the 7-year term (2021 to the end of 2027) and with a total budget of around 95 billion euros, the best ideas from European/international research consortia and individual researchers are to be funded. The spectrum of funding opportunities covers almost the entire value chain, from basic research to marketable products. Funded projects should contribute to building a knowledge and innovation-based society and a competitive economy in order to successfully meet the major challenges facing our society. Funding is awarded in the course of predominantly thematic calls for proposals (top-down) along the program structure shown below. However, in some parts of the program, such as the European Research Council (ERC) or the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), applicants are free to choose their own topics and can develop their own ideas without specifications (bottom-up).
Videos
- Horizon Europe Info days
- How to prepare a successful proposal in Horizon Europe (morning session)
- How to prepare a successful proposal in Horizon Europe (afternoon session)
- Training on Horizon Europe proposal writing - Part 1 of 2
- Training on Horizon Europe proposal writing - Part 2 of 2
- Dissemination & Exploitation in Horizon Europe
- Horizon Europe Coordinators' Day: Grant Agreement Preparation
- ERC Classes
Details on the individual program areas:
As in Horizon 2020, Pillar 1 contains the more basic research-oriented programs. The predominantly open-topic calls are aimed in part at individual researchers but also at research consortia.
The European Research Council (ERC) is seen as the European excellence program and supports excellent individual researchers and their teams. The Starting Grants (StG) are aimed at researchers between 2-7 years and the Consolidator Grants (CoG) between 7-12 years after their doctorate. The Advanced Grants (AdG), on the other hand, are not subject to any formal requirements, but applicants must have an outstanding scientific track record over the last 10 years. Synergy Grants (SyG) fund projects by two to four promising Principal Investigators. The ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) funding line is aimed at scientists who have already received a Starting, Consolidator, Advanced or Synergy Grant and who would like to test their research results for social or economic added value.
The mobility measures of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) are primarily aimed at the career development of researchers. The funding formats known from Horizon 2020 will be continued in Horizon Europe under a different name and with slightly different regulations. The MSCA Doctoral Networks (MSC DN) are transnational networks for doctoral training. The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSC PF) support individual researchers who have completed their doctorate and wish to further advance their career through a research or training project as part of a European Postdoctoral Fellowship or Global Postdoctoral Fellowship. The MSCA Staff Exchanges (MSC SE) program line aims to promote intersectoral, international and interdisciplinary cooperation through the exchange of personnel and knowledge. MSCA COFUND supports existing as well as new regional, national and international programs for the training, mobility and career development of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers. The well-known European Researchers' Night, which aims to raise public awareness of the importance of science, can now be applied for as part of MSCA and Citizens.
The research infrastructures part of the programme aims to provide Europe with an excellent infrastructure of facilities, equipment, resources, databases and services for generating new knowledge, for example, and to make these accessible to all researchers in Europe and optimize their use.
Pillar 2 combines the pillars "Industrial Leadership" and "Societal Challenges" known from Horizon 2020. It is now divided into six thematic clusters for which there will be separate work programs (usually running for two years) with the corresponding call texts. These will follow the top-down principle, i.e. the tendered topics are predetermined thematically. There will be different types of activities with different objectives and stages of research and development. The so-called Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) primarily serve to generate new knowledge, whereas the Innovation Actions (IA) start later in the research and innovation cycle and focus less on the creation of new knowledge and more on the further development of existing innovations, products and services. In most cases, the EU will also provide information on the so-called Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) in the course of the calls for proposals. Coordination and Support Actions (CSA) are accompanying measures such as standardization, dissemination, awareness-raising and communication, networking, coordination or support measures.
Missions: One of the most important innovations in Horizon Europe is the introduction of so-called missions. Inspired by the Apollo 11 mission in the 1960s, thematically defined missions are intended to help find solutions to the most important global challenges facing our society within a defined time horizon. The missions will be located in funding pillar 2 and comprise the following mission areas:
- Adaptation to climate change, including societal change
- Cancer
- Healthy oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters
- Climate-neutral smart cities
- Soil health and nutrition
The funding of (market-creating) innovation-related activities is supported in Pillar 3 by the European Innovation Council (EIC), the European Innovation Ecosystems and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. The EIC Pathfinder (Open/Challenge), which is seen as the successor to the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) known in Horizon 2020, plays a particularly important role for university applicants.
Horizon Europe is intended to help secure and further expand Europe's global competitiveness. In order to achieve this goal, it is important to strengthen cooperation in Europe and to further reduce the performance gap in research and innovation, i.e. to specifically involve countries with low R&I performance (especially the so-called EU-13 countries). This is to be achieved through the program area Expansion of participation and dissemination of excellence. The Reforming and Strengthening the European Research and Innovation System program area aims to strengthen research and innovation in Europe and support the impact of the European Research Area. These goals are to be achieved through a wide variety of measures such as open science practices, gender equality, ethics and integrity, science communication, etc.
