Commission releases Horizon Europe final work programmes for 2026-27

The European Commission has released its plans for funding research and innovation in the next two years of the current Horizon Europe programme, 2026-27. 

This is the culmination of a months-long drafting process, which this year the Commission made public for the first time by sharing draft versions of the plans on its comitology website. 

The newly released package of funding calls is spread through 13 work programmes, each outlining the plans for a specific Horizon Europe funding instrument or priority, and two documents introducing the rules and general priorities. 

Simpler management

The Commission promises this next batch of funding calls and projects will be easier to manage than before. In recent years, researchers have been increasingly complaining about the programme’s overly complex rules and lengthy application processes. 

To reduce the burden, the call topics are now less prescriptive, reducing the length of the entire work programme by 33%. The topics now also call for fewer but larger projects, which the Commission hopes will maximise impact.

The Commission also suggests the wider rollout of lump sum funding for half of all the calls will reduce the paperwork by lifting the projects’ financial reporting requirements. However, not everyone will welcome this move, as bigger organisations still prefer “proven and safe” accounting paperwork.  

Finally, more calls than ever, 41 in total, will have a two-stage application process, with the applicants asked to first submit a short proposal before the most promising ones are asked to present a full application. The Commission hopes this approach, combined with anonymised evaluations in some calls, will help reduce bias and shorten the time it takes to get a grant.

“We have listened to researchers and innovators and made Horizon Europe simpler and more accessible to SMEs, start-ups and newcomers,” EU research Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva said.

Horizontal topics and other novelties

The biggest novelty this year will be the introduction of horizontal calls for tackling cross-cutting innovation challenges. The calls, outlined in a new, separate work programme, will cover two topics.

The first one is the Clean Industrial Deal, the EU’s plan for boosting its competitiveness through clean technology innovation. Horizon Europe will inject €540 million into projects accelerating technology deployment for decarbonising energy-intensive industries and climate action. 

The other €90 million horizontal call will invest €90 million in AI in science, supporting trustworthy AI applications in sectors such as advanced materials, agriculture and healthcare. 

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In addition to introducing horizontal calls, the work programmes also include new measures for making the programme more attractive to newcomers, such as new “fast track to research and innovation” calls for maturing new technologies and concepts, focused on small companies.

Another key feature is the plan to launch a €51.25 million Choose Europe call in 2027, building on the ongoing a €22.5 million pilot. 

The initiative’s original aim was to tackle brain drain and the precarity of research careers by co-funding the recruitment of postdoctoral researchers for up to five years. But Choose Europe is now also one of the EU’s newest tools for attracting more global talent to EU research institutions, alongside the seven-year €7 million European Research Council super-grants for frontier research, to be introduced in 2026.