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NCP Flanders has extended the duration of its short satisfaction survey to gather valuable feedback and suggestions on the NCP services. The survey is fully anonymous and is open until 9 October 2026. It is organised into three sections: NCP Flanders assistance, info sessions, and NCP Flanders website & LinkedIn. If you are not familiar with one of these sections, the survey will automatically guide you to the next section. The NCP Flanders team would greatly appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to fill in the survey and provide your opinion via this link. If you would like to get in touch with NCP Flanders, please email info@ncpflanders.be
Quantum moves out of Cluster 4 The most visible change is the departure of quantum technologies. Following the extension of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking's mandate to quantum, three 2026 quantum topics have been cancelled and the planned quantum grant agreements have been removed. Stricter rules on China In all 2027 topics where participation is restricted for strategic reasons, entities controlled from China can no longer obtain an exception through guarantees. This replaces the earlier rule targeting high-risk telecom suppliers. One manufacturing Innovation Action now excludes China-controlled entities altogether. Check your consortium composition early. Testing a lottery The Commission introduces a "partial randomisation" pilot in two topics: Proof of market and an AI topic on human/AI collaboration. Where proposals score almost equally, part of the selection will be made by random draw. Industry: calls open later All 2027 Industry calls now open on 13 October 2026 instead of 22 September. The submission deadlines stay the same: 2 February 2027, and 2 September 2027 for the second stage. Budgets shift slightly. The "Proof of market" topic gets a little less, and a new support action is added on venture builders in universities and research organisations (€1 million). One two-stage topic on energy in the process industries changes from a Research and Innovation Action to an Innovation Action, which means a lower funding rate for companies. Digital: mostly fine-tuning The 2027 Digital calls keep their dates (opening 17 November 2026, deadline 18 March 2027) and budgets. The topic on energy-efficient AI data centres has been reworked. It now aims to fund four projects of €9-10 million each, all intended to set up open pilot sites. Space: more money for some topics, one call postponed The ISOS4I in-orbit servicing topic grows from about €1 million to almost €4 million. The two topics on critical space components and equipment move to a new call with a deadline of 20 January 2028. They come with much larger project sizes, but no budget has been confirmed yet. The EUSPA call on Galileo and Copernicus for preparedness is also postponed by one year. What should you do? If you are applying for a 2027 topic, re-read the final text of your topic in version 1.1. Pay particular attention to budgets, eligibility conditions and evaluation rules. A detailed overview of all changes (automated analysis with AI) is attached to this article.
After lengthy discussions, the final work programme on the horizontal activities has been officially published on the website of the European Commission. First added to Horizon Europe in 2025, this broadly defined work programme supports EU policy goals through four topics: the Clean Industrial Deal, AI in Science, a nature-positive economy and society, and bridging innovations to market. R&I support of the Clean Industrial Deal Mobilises investment in clean resources and technologies, strengthens industrial competitiveness and resilience, and supports the decarbonisation and circularity of energy-intensive industries. AI in Science The European Commission’s RAISE initiative is designed to fund AI-in-science networks of excellence, automated laboratories and doctoral networks modelled on Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. Transformative change towards a nature-positive economy and society Supports biodiversity research and innovation to help business growth, innovation and ecosystem restoration advance together, delivering a measurable increase in nature. Bridging actions Supports the transition from Horizon Europe to the 2028–2034 EU R&I Framework Programme by helping research results progress from innovation to investment and market deployment. An info day on the nature and bridging calls is planned for 16 October for which all the information is available here. If you are looking for partners for the nature calls, participants may wish to take part in the matchmaking session on 19 October.
EIT Culture & Creativity (European Institute of Innovation and Technology) has launched a €10.5 million call supporting market-ready innovations in fashion, architecture and audiovisual media. The programme targets startups, scale-ups and SMEs established in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe associated country, with a technically validated innovation at Technology Readiness Level 7 (TRL). Modalities: The call has two stages. Selected applicants receive €20,000 in stage 1 to develop a Business Development Plan. In stage 2, up to 11 projects may receive up to €900,000 each for an implementation period of up to 18 months during which they must focus on market entry, scaling up and revenue generation. Deadlines: 30 October 2026 for stage 1 and 15 March 2027 for stage 2. More information: Full eligibility criteria and application details are available on the EIT Culture & Creativity website. An online information session is planned for 7 October 2026 from 10.00 CET, and registration is available here.
The OECD and the European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation have joined forces to develop a new international survey of personnel working in research and development (R&D). The survey is part of OECD’s Research and Innovation Careers Observatory (ReICO), which brings together internationally comparable evidence on R&D careers across more than 50 countries. Policy debates about R&D careers draw on case studies and personal accounts, but survey data from the people working in R&D is scarce. Their experiences and perspectives will help policymakers and employers make better-informed decisions about R&D careers. The survey is available here on the OECD website. To take part in the survey respondents have two authentication options. A first option is to authenticate through the personal Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID). A second option is to request that the survey link be sent by email. The survey has been open since July and is expected to remain open until mid-October 2026.
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Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant coordinated the Glaukos project, which answered the call topic published in 2019 of Horizon 2020 Framework Programme ‘Develop bio-based fibres and/or functional molecules to improve the performance of textile products’ under the Framework of the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU). The consortium partners took up this challenge by valorising industrial side streams and setting up a circular approach to the textile industry.
