The European Commission announced it has allocated an additional €500 million to Horizon Europe, the EU’s flagship research and innovation programme. The funding will support projects in 2026 and 2027. The total budget now reaches around €14.8 billion for the two years.
The Commission will also extend the scope of Horizon Europe by including two new cross-cutting calls to tackle major research and innovation challenges.
According to the Commission, the new scope aims to address topics such as next-generation AI-driven digital platforms for a more affordable, secure, and sustainable European energy system; skills for innovative SMEs; biodiversity benefits and impacts of the clean and digital industries; and accelerating transformative change for biodiversity.
“With this amendment, we are putting new funding behind priorities that matter to Europeans and to attract and boost excellence to and within Europe,” said Ekaterina Zaharieva, Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, in a press statement.
New Funding Opportunities
The two new horizontal calls are:
- Transformative Change Towards a Nature-Positive Economy and Society, with a budget of €237 million;
- Bridging Actions 2027, with a total financing of €260 million.
The Nature-Positive call will fund 11 research and innovation actions supporting the EU’s biodiversity goals and help meet the 10% biodiversity spending target set out in the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2025-2027.
The Bridging Actions 2027 call will prepare the ground for the EU’s next research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe 2028-2034, and its links with the future European Competitiveness Fund.
According to the Commission, it introduces the “innovation to investment journey” to better connect research with market deployment.
Sixteen actions under this call will support advanced technologies with strong commercial potential, tackling topics such as Autonomous Drive Ambition Cities, Research and technology infrastructures as strategic assets for talent to Choose Europe, and Advanced scaling frameworks.
