Horizon papers: industry calls get a Clean Industrial Deal makeover in 2026-27

Europe’s Clean Industrial Deal is making itself felt in Horizon Europe, according to a leaked early draft of the 2026-27 work programme for Cluster 4, which covers digital, industry and space research.

In 2026 and 2027, the European Commission plans to run two mega-calls dedicated to research and innovation in support of the Clean Industrial Deal. 

They will fund massive, close-to-market projects worth €20-25 million each, out of an annual budget of €125 million. These are by far the biggest calls listed in the Cluster 4 work programme as of February 2025.

Both calls will focus on three technology areas that show “strong and promising growth potential.” These are: carbon capture, utilisation and storage; clean energy usage in production; and the circularity and resource efficiency of production processes. 

Presented in February, the Clean Industrial Deal is the EU’s blueprint for turning its decarbonisation push into a driver for economic growth. Unlike previous EU policies, the plan promised to come with extra money. “In our view, it shows we mean business by putting a serious amount of money on the table,” Wopke Hoekstra, EU commissioner for climate action, said at the time.

This included €600 million in funding for deployment-ready clean technology projects under Horizon’s Cluster 5 for climate, mobility and energy projects, in addition to “bringing together” pilot actions from across Horizon Europe.

It is unclear whether the €250 million dedicated to Clean Industrial Deal mega-calls in Cluster 4 is part of the promised €600 million budget or an addition.

Another significant change in Cluster 4: the two mega-calls will shake up the structure of “destinations” under which calls are clustered in the work programme. 

Two of the Cluster’s destinations dedicated to global industrial leadership and raw materials are merged into one in the latest draft. The new destination “Leadership in materials and production in Europe” now includes calls from former destinations one and two, for those familiar with Horizon jargon.

Low-carbon economy

Elsewhere in the draft, there is more targeted funding for the EU’s shift towards a low-carbon economy. In particular, the Commission will give grants to projects on energy efficiency and sustainability of artificial intelligence data processing in data centres, among others.

The EU also continues to fund innovation on exploring, extracting, processing and refining raw materials, at a time when Europe is doubling down on efforts to boost made-in-EU clean technology manufacturing.

Related articles

• G7 leaders set out new AI and quantum research agenda
• Horizon Europe to fund deployment-ready clean tech

The draft work programmes also foresee many calls focused on AI and robotics, covering subjects such as fostering international cooperation in AI, including in science, and developing intelligent robotics platforms for industrial and service applications. 

They also put an emphasis on quantum, photonics and semiconductors.

When it comes to space, the main goal remains to give Europe a competitive edge in global markets and reinforce its autonomous access to space.

The draft programme is likely to change and expand in the coming weeks and months, until it is publicly released with the final batch of Horizon Europe programmes in the last quarter of 2025. Science|Business will continue sharing leaked drafts as we receive them. 

Editor’s note: We think it is important to maintain a public record of how Horizon Europe evolves in successive rounds of drafting between the Commission and member states. This is a political process that, so far, the Commission refuses to make transparent. To this end, Science|Business is making a full history of the drafting process publicly available in our Horizon Papers database. You can share other draft work programmes anonymously at [email protected].