
Horizon Europe is the research and innovation programme of the European Commission. It invests a total of 100,000 million euros between 2021 and 2027. It is the successor programme to Horizon 2020 and is framed within the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with three objectives:
- To strengthen the EU’s scientific and technological bases and the European Research Area (ERA).
- To boost Europe’s innovation capacity, competitiveness and jobs.
- To deliver on citizens’ priorities and sustain our socio-economic model and values.
The programme is based on various pillars:

INNOVATIVE EUROPE
The aim is to ensure the expansion of cutting-edge and disruptive innovation through the creation of the new European Innovation Council (EIC), which will be a unique window for high-potential innovators.

GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND EUROPEAN INDUSTRIAL COMPETITIVENESS
The aim is to support research addressing societal challenges as well as industrial technologies. These challenges are structured in 6 thematic areas encompassed in clusters:
- Health
- Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society
- Civil Security for Society
- Digital, Industry & Space
- Climate, Energy and Mobility
- Food, Biotechnology, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

EXCELLENT SCIENCE
The programme aims to support excellence in science, strengthen the Union’s scientific leadership and promote high quality knowledge and skills.
- European Research: Frontier research by the best researchers and their team.
- Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions: Equipping researchers with new knowledge and skill through mobility and training.
- Research infrastructures: Integrated and inter-connected world-class research infrastructures.
WIDENING PARTICIPATION AND STRENGTHENING THE EUROPEAN RESEARCH AREA
The new Horizon Europe programme has a transversal part that aims to increase R&D capacities in Europe and to close the R&D gap between the most developed Member States and the ones lagging behind in R&D. A number of actions have been defined for Horizon Europe, ranging from encouraging participation to making researchers’ careers more attractive to achieving gender equality.
Horizon Europe will be launched in April 2021, when the first calls for projects will open. All calls for proposals will be published on the official website.
These calls for proposals have fixed launch and closing dates, is usually a period of 3-4 months. In certain cases, the call for proposals may be permanently open for the duration of the programme, and cut-off dates will be established, after which all proposals submitted up to that point will be evaluated by an international panel.
The new programme has introduced important new features in relation to calls for proposals. If you want to participate in one of those, you can visit the official website, or you can contact us for more specific questions and collaboration proposal.