Once you have an idea for a specific project, it’s time to start looking for funding opportunities. The first step in this process is to find the relevant funding programme within the Horizon Europe framework. The Horizon Europe programme has a long-term budget of €95.5 billion for 2021-2027. This budget is broken down into programmes that offer funding for the following projects or types of actions:
- Research and Innovation Actions (RIA): Projects that facilitate new knowledge or explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service, or solution.
- Innovation Actions (IA): Projects that produce plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered, or improved products, processes, or services.
- Coordination and Support Actions (CSA): Projects that contribute to the objectives of Horizon Europe. This excludes R&I activities, except for ‘Widening participation and spreading excellence’.
- Programme Co-fund Actions (CoFund): Projects established or implemented by legal entities managing or funding R&I programmes, other than EU funding bodies.
- Innovation and Market Deployment Actions (IMDA): Projects that include an innovative action and other activities required to bring the innovation to market. (EIC).
- Training and Mobility Actions (TMA): Projects seeking to improve the skills, knowledge, and career prospects of researchers. This is based on mobility between countries and, if relevant, between sectors or disciplines. (MSCA)
- Pre-commercial Procurement Actions/ (PCP): Projects that help a buyer’s group encourage public procurement of research, development, and validation of new solutions; and when applicable, the first deployment of new solutions.
- Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions Actions (PPI) Projects that improve a buyer group’s ability to deploy innovative solutions earlier.
Every Horizon Europe program and sub-program has a biannual work programme (WP) with a variety of objectives, topics, calls, and budgets. As such, each call provided in a WP contains all the necessary information you need to be prepared for it. The call is described in detail with the specific challenge, scope, expected impact, and the required type of action.
At present, each Horizon Europe program has a WP for 2021-2022. All WPs are already officially published and available on the Funding and Tenders Portal. On the Portal, you’ll also be able to find other documents for the application package, including general requirements and guidance, legislation, templates, and budget patterns specific to this or that program.
What’s the ideal time to start developing a Horizon Europe proposal?
Your Horizon Europe proposal will consist of two significant parts:
- Consortium-related activities (recruiting, negotiating, defining functions, managing contributions, etc.)
- Writing-related activities (answering the call text, objectives, concepts, describing impact, developing a work plan and budget, etc.)
Generally speaking, you should start developing your proposal 12 to 8 months before the call deadline to ensure everything is ready on time.
Preparing your consortium-related activities
Once you’ve identified a specific topic and call within the Horizon Europe WP, your next steps will be to find partners and consolidate the consortium for your project. Even though some actions don’t require a consortium, the majority of Horizon Europe grants are collaborative projects. In Horizon Europe, there are two eligibility rules regarding the consortium composition. Your consortium should have:
- At least one independent legal entity established in a Member State.
- At least two other independent legal entities. Each entity should be established either in a different Member State or Associated Country.
Note: From 2022 onwards, participants that are public bodies, research organizations, or higher education establishments from Member States and Associated countries must have a gender equality plan that covers the minimum process-related requirements:
- Self-declaration will be requested at the proposal stage (for all types of participants)
- The plan must be included in the entity validation process (based on self-declaration).
Preparing your writing-related activities:
Once you’ve solidified your idea and gotten your first partners, you’ll need to register on the Funding and Tenders Portal by creating an EU Login account. The next step is to start writing your application.
We recommend planning at least 2 months for the writing part of your proposal and at least 1 week for proofreading.
Horizon Europe proposals consist of two parts:
- Part A – System-generated, web-based, administrative forms that contain the information entered by the participants through the submission system in the Funding and Tenders Portal.
- Part B – The narrative portion of the proposal, consisting of three sections that correspond to specific evaluation criteria. Part B will be the most significant part of your proposal, and will thus require the most time and effort. This document should demonstrate that your idea is ambitious and convince evaluators to fund your project.
Important note: Part B must be uploaded as a PDF following the templates downloaded by applicants in the submission system for the specific call or topic.
Evaluation criteria – three sections of a Horizon Europe proposal
Part B is where you need to explain the project’s background and goals. A successful Part B demonstrates how these goals will be achieved in the following sections:
1. Excellence
This section clarifies the project’s objectives and their relevance to the project. They need to demonstrate that the proposed work is ambitious and goes beyond the state of the art. It proves that the proposed methodology, including the underlying concepts, models, and assumptions, is sound.
In addition, it shows that the project will undertake interdisciplinary approaches and appropriate gender considerations in its research and innovation content. It should highlight the quality of the open science practices to be used, including the sharing and management of research outputs, and, as appropriate, the engagement of citizens, civil society, and end users (Excellence only for ERC).
2. Impact
This section focuses on building credibility for the methods and procedures that will be used to achieve the expected outcomes and impacts specified in the work program. It also demonstrates the high plausibility of the estimated scale and significance of the project’s contributions.
A successful Impact section shows how your project could contribute to the outcomes and impacts described in the work program (new approach to impact: Horizon Europe Key Impacts Pathways (KIPs)). It’s important to highlight the suitability and quality of the measures used to maximize the expected outcomes and impacts, as detailed in the dissemination and exploitation (D&E) plan, including communication activities.
3. Implementation
This section demonstrates the quality and effectiveness of the work plan and the risk assessment. It needs to detail the appropriateness of the overall effort and resources assigned to the work packages. Be sure to highlight each participant’s role and capacity, and describe the extent to which the consortium as a whole can provide the necessary expertise.
Important note: The work proposed in your application must be within the scope of the work program topic that you’ve chosen. A common proposal-writing mistake is paying too much attention to the Implementation section and describing the work plan in great detail, while not spending enough time on the Excellence and Impact sections. Your Part B must explain why, in general, your project deserves funding and how it reflects the objectives of the programme you’ve chosen for it.
Evaluators will also be looking to ensure your proposal addresses the gender dimension and open science, measures to maximize impact (D&E plan), and follows practices that won’t cause significant environmental harm. This is the norm for all Horizon Europe calls, unless it’s explicitly mentioned in the topic description. Specific calls may include or exempt other aspects.
Common mistakes in Horizon Europe proposal writing
Writing a Horizon Europe proposal is a significant commitment in terms of preparation, project estimation, and collaboration with all partners. This article provides expert advice on avoiding common mistakes in Horizon Europe proposal writing.
How to write an outstanding Excellence Section for a Horizon Europe proposal
This article provides a detailed, step-by-step overview, along with expert tips on writing an outstanding Excellence Section for a Horizon Europe proposal.
How to write a convincing Impact Section for a Horizon Europe proposal
What do the evaluators expect to see in the Impact Section of a Horizon Europe proposal? What is the impact of newness in the Horizon Europe programme? Check this article to get practical tips on how to maximise the impact of your Horizon Europe project.
5 simple steps to design a successful Horizon Europe proposal workplan
In this article, we outline the main steps to develop a successful Horizon Europe proposal workplan, and provide expert tips on creating and organising activities & deliverables.
Quick guide for developing a Horizon Europe proposal budget
The primary goal of any Horizon Europe proposal budget is to show how much money a project will cost and if those costs adhere to the guidelines. In this article, we answer the question of what kind of costs can be covered by the Horizon EU grant and give some tips on how to calculate your project’s budget.
