Horizon Europe

What is Horizon Europe?

Horizon Europe is the EU’s flagship programme for research and innovation, running until 2027 with an indicative budget of €93.5 billion. It builds on the success of Horizon 2020 and remains one of the most ambitious funding schemes in the world.

The programme addresses major global challenges, from tackling climate change and supporting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to boosting Europe’s competitiveness and growth. It fosters cross-border collaboration, strengthens industrial leadership, and helps transform excellent research into market-ready solutions. Legal entities from the EU and associated countries are eligible to participate.

Missions

Horizon Europe is structured around five ambitious missions, each designed to deliver measurable impact by 2030. These missions focus on adapting Europe to climate change, supporting 100 climate-neutral and smart cities, improving cancer prevention and treatment, ensuring healthy soils across the continent, and restoring marine and freshwater ecosystems. Together, they give the programme a clear direction and a powerful ability to mobilise research towards pressing societal needs.

Deadlines

Horizon Europe is an umbrella programme that includes numerous calls. To have an overview of all the calls available, go to the Horizon Funding and Tender Portal.

Upcoming Horizon Europe Energy Calls

Two Horizon Europe calls under Cluster 5 offer significant funding opportunities for companies and research organisations developing renewable-energy, carbon-management and digital-energy technologies.

HORIZON-CL5-2026-11 – Energy

The five topics under HORIZON-CL5-2026-11, with a submission deadline of 1 December 2026, are:

1. HORIZON-CL5-2026-11-D3-04 – De-risking renewable fuel technologies through transnational pre-commercial procurement of renewable fuel industrial value chains: Supports transnational pre-commercial procurement to develop, demonstrate and de-risk complete European industrial value chains for essential renewable-fuel technologies, targeting TRL 8 and subsequent market deployment.
2. HORIZON-CL5-2026-11-D3-05 – Demonstration of solid biofuel supply and conversion to high efficiency CHP from fully sustainable regional value chains: Supports the demonstration of fully sustainable regional value chains that supply solid biofuels and convert them into renewable heat and electricity through high-efficiency, large-scale combined heat and power systems.
3. HORIZON-CL5-2026-11-D3-06 – Resource assessment for deep sedimentary and basement reservoirs: Supports improved methods for assessing deep sedimentary and crystalline-basement geothermal reservoirs to increase exploration knowledge, drilling success and the sustainable use of geothermal energy.
4. HORIZON-CL5-2026-11-D3-14 – Improved system design for innovative PV applications (EUPI-PV Partnership): Supports improved system components, designs and architectures that make innovative applications such as agrivoltaics and offshore or nearshore solar PV technically viable, sustainable and commercially bankable.
5. HORIZON-CL5-2026-11-D3-23 – Data sharing to support the training and development of AI foundation models in the energy sector: Supports secure and effective energy-data sharing and the development, training and real-life validation of AI foundation models for applications such as grid operation, forecasting, congestion management, predictive maintenance and energy efficiency.

The call has a total indicative budget of €131.5 million. It opened on 4 August 2026 and closes on 1 December 2026 at 17:00 CET. 

HORIZON-CL5-2027-02 – Batteries and Energy

The following six selected energy-supply topics under HORIZON-CL5-2027-02 may be particularly relevant to companies and research organisations working with renewable energy, digital energy systems and carbon management:

1. HORIZON-CL5-2027-02-D3-07 – Concentrated solar thermal systems for decarbonising industrial processes: Supports the demonstration of concentrated solar thermal systems combined with heat storage to supply renewable heating or cooling to industrial processes at temperatures of 150–400°C and achieve a solar share of at least 50%.
2. HORIZON-CL5-2027-02-D3-09 – Innovative technologies and solutions to improve wave and tidal energy systems: Supports the development and demonstration of cost-effective, reliable and sustainable wave and tidal energy technologies, including devices, materials, moorings, electrical connections and monitoring systems designed for harsh marine environments.
3. HORIZON-CL5-2027-02-D3-15 – Production technologies for solar photovoltaics beyond the state-of-the-art (EUPI-PV Partnership): Supports pilot-ready, automated and energy-efficient European production technologies for high-performance solar cells and modules that go beyond commercially available PV technologies and can be scaled towards multi-megawatt manufacturing.
4. HORIZON-CL5-2027-02-D3-24 – Large scale operational validation and upscaling of state-of-the-art (Generative) AI tools and models powering a next generation digital energy system: Supports the large-scale operational validation of secure, resource-efficient generative AI tools for real-time grid monitoring, balancing, forecasting, market operation and consumer empowerment within distributed energy systems.
5. HORIZON-CL5-2027-02-D3-30 – Advancements in Direct Air Capture: Supports the pilot-scale demonstration of improved direct air capture technologies that reduce capture and regeneration costs and energy use while improving materials, process performance, manufacturability and flexible operation with renewable energy.
6. HORIZON-CL5-2027-02-D3-31 – Support to the implementation of an EU policy framework for CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure: Supports coordination, knowledge development and stakeholder cooperation needed to implement an effective EU policy and regulatory framework for cross-border CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure.

Together, these six selected topics have a combined indicative budget of €132 million. The complete HORIZON-CL5-2027-02 call, which also includes battery-related and other energy topics, has an overall indicative budget of €227.6 million. It is scheduled to open on 3 December 2026 and close on 31 March 2027 at 17:00 Brussels time. 

Structure of the Programme

Horizon Europe is a very complex programme with numerous calls throughout the year. Overall, the programme is divided into three pillars:

3 pillars of Horizon Europe

The programme is organised into three main pillars.

1. Excellent Science supports world-class research through initiatives like the European Research Council and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.
2. Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness funds research and innovation in areas such as health, digitalisation, mobility, climate, energy, and food systems, with the aim of strengthening Europe’s industrial base and resilience.
3. Innovative Europe drives breakthrough technologies and market-creating innovations, led by the European Innovation Council, while also nurturing innovation ecosystems and supporting the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.

A cross-cutting strand ensures that Horizon Europe also contributes to spreading excellence and strengthening the European Research Area, making the programme more inclusive and impactful across all regions of Europe.

European Partnerships

Another key element of Horizon Europe is the support for partnerships between the EU, national authorities, and industry. These collaborations pool resources to tackle complex challenges and accelerate progress in strategic areas such as climate, energy, mobility, digitalisation, and health.

1st Mile and Horizon Europe

Given the number, scale and complexity of Horizon Europe calls, successful applications require a clearly defined innovation case, the right international consortium and careful preparation well before the submission deadline. 1st Mile supports project development, consortium building and proposal preparation. Contact us to discuss whether one of the current Horizon Europe topics could match your project.