The EU Commission is to allocate an additional €500 million to the EU’s Horizon Europe research programme for 2026 and 2027, reaching a total total budget of around €14.8 billion for the two years.
The EU executive has also announced an extension of the scope of Horizon Europe by including two new cross-cutting calls to tackle major research and innovation challenges, such as next-generation AI-driven digital platforms for a more affordable, secure and sustainable European energy system; skills for innovative SMEs; addressing the biodiversity benefits and impacts of the clean and digital industries and accelerate transformative change for biodiversity.
Also today, the Commission has published two monitoring reports which show that Horizon Europe remains highly attractive for researchers, innovators and companies from across Europe and beyond.
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.
This call will drive the transition towards nature-positive economic models, supporting Europe’s long-term competitiveness, economic and societal resilience and strategic autonomy. It will also contribute to key EU priorities including the Ocean Pact and the EU Ocean Eye, Nature Restoration Regulation, the Clean Industrial Deal, the European Water Resilience Strategy, and the Communication on Integrated Wildfire Risk Management.
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.
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 EU AI Media Platform, a modular multilingual public-interest infrastructure for European news and audiovisual media. Autonomous Drive Ambition Cities; Research and technology infrastructures as strategic assets for talent to Choose Europe and Advanced scaling frameworks New European Bauhaus.
In addition, the amended work programme will support the New European Bauhaus Academy including including with the upskilling and reskilling of workers in the construction ecosystem. This support reflects the wider ambitions set out in the Commission’s 2025 Communication on the New European Bauhaus contributing to the Clean Industrial Deal.
The two reports published today confirm the strong appeal of Horizon Europe with researchers, innovators and companies from across Europe and beyond.
The report Horizon Europe State of Play shows that the current programme, launched in 2021, has so far invested €61 billion in grants and a further €1.3 billion in equity in nearly 23,000 projects. These projects involve more than 34,000 organisations, including 20,000 companies. Most funding has gone to universities and research centres, while the private sector has also received over €11 billion.
The second report, Is Horizon Europe attractive for new participants?, shows that 55% of beneficiaries are newcomers to EU research and innovation programmes, with two-thirds being businesses. It also highlights a challenge: the average newcomer participates in only one project, compared with multiple grants for more experienced organisations.
Horizon Europe work programme 2026-2027
