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IGLO (Informal Group of RTD Liaison Offices) organised an online workshop in May 2026 with more than 60 participants reflecting on the broader implications of lump sum funding in Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 for research management and project governance. A report was edited and contained among others the following main points: positive experiences with reduced financial reporting requirements operational challenges like uncertainty regarding work package completion, and a shift of administrative effort instead of reduction organisational adaptations: increased attention to design of work packages, closer cooperation between scientific and administrative staff, growing importance of consortium agreements remaining open questions: assessment of work package completion, evidence required of project implementation, implication of budget flexibility, project closure
The restriction had applied to public interest trusts created under Hungarian law in 2021 and to organisations managed by those trusts, including some universities and research institutions. The list of institutions is available in this 2023 NCP Flanders news article. Following the EU Council decision of 13 October 2026, effective from 14 October 2026, these entities are again eligible to apply for EU-funded projects, become beneficiaries and receive funding. For ongoing projects, affected Hungarian organisations may now receive funding if the consortium formally amends the grant agreement. This change only applies from 14 October 2026 onwards, with no retroactive funding, and the overall grant amount cannot increase, so funding would need to be redistributed within the existing budget. For projects in the grant agreement preparation stage, organisations that were included only as associated partners without funding may now be added as funded beneficiaries. Coordinators are asked to contact their EU project officer to arrange the change. For new proposals, applicants may again include these Hungarian entities as funded partners in Horizon Europe and other EU-funded projects. The European Commission is expected to publish FAQs and further guidance on the Funding & Tenders Portal after the decision appears in the Official Journal of the European Union.
The Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) partnership has published the draft texts of its upcoming calls for proposals, foreseen to open in early 2027. The following topics are under consideration for inclusion in IHI calls 14 and 15: IHI call 14 draft topic texts Topic 1: Validation of human-relevant novel approaches to accelerate the discovery and pre-clinical development of innovative medicinal products and health technologies Topic 2: Validated, predictive approaches for clinical development of innovative personalised health technologies Topic 3: Transforming healthcare delivery through integrated, scalable and patient-centred care systems Topic 4: Advanced therapy medicinal products: Supporting manufacturing and clinical centre readiness in Europe IHI call 15 draft topic texts Topic 1: A common European approach to equitable patient access to compassionate use Topic 2: From early endpoints to long-term outcomes: Healthcare decision-making on the use of surrogate evidence for timely patient access These topics are currently under consultation and may therefore have changed considerably at the moment of the call launch. Applicants should check the final, approved topic texts once they are published. More information is available on the IHI dedicated webpage. Note that these are foreseen to be the last calls launched under the current Horizon Europe programme (2021 - 2027).IHI is expected to hold info sessions about the calls around the time of the launch; these are expected to cover the topics as well as its rules and procedures.
The project VALLEYS aims to strengthen knowledge valorisation in Europe by building a network of knowledge valorisation intermediaries connecting more than 150 organisations from over 25 countries, empowering organisations such as TTOs, incubators, science parks, clusters, and citizen engagement entities to adopt and scale the EU Guiding Principles (2022) and Codes of Practice for Knowledge Valorisation. The VALLEYS project includes a cascade funding programme making available €500.000 through two open calls to support external organisations in testing and implementing innovative approaches to knowledge valorisation (up to 25 projects). The first of two open calls funds six-months pilot projects that must address at least one of the four EU Codes of Practice for Knowledge Valorisation: Intellectual Assets Management (2023), Standardisation (2023), Industry-Academia Co-creation (2024) and Citizen Engagement for Knowledge Valorisation (2024). Applicants can choose from three strands for which they can apply: Strand A Toolbox Integration Pilots Deployment and institutional use of the VALLEYS Knowledge Valorisation Toolbox, including AI-enabled assistants. Activities include installing or customising the Toolbox, embedding it into workflows, training staff, testing real cases, and producing documented case studies. Up to €10.000 per project. Strand B Cross-border Mobility and Secondments Structured staff exchanges between two knowledge valorisation intermediaries from two different countries, transferring practices in areas such as IP management, standardisation, co-creation brokerage, or citizen engagement. One organization acts as the host and the other as the guest. Up to €30.000 per project. Two partners from two different countries. Strand C Combined Approaches Integrated actions combining cross-border mobility with Toolbox adoption. Up to €40.000 per project. Two partners from two different countries. For each strand expected outputs have been defined. The call is open for applications from legal entities from EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries and must be a knowledge valorisation intermediary as defined by VALLEYS. The first open call has a budget of up to €210.000 available for up to 11 projects. The first call is open from 19 October to 14 December 2026 17:00 CET. Results of the evaluation and selection are expected to be communicated to the applicants by the end of January, and projects are expected to start as of April 2027. All information related to the first call, including the Guide for applicants and application forms, is available here on the VALLEYS project website. The info day on strand A takes place on 28 October 2026. More information is available here. The info day on strand B and C takes place on 9 November 2026. More information is available here. The second call is expected to open on 7 October 2027 and close on 15 December 2027. Background The project VALLEYS - Valorisation Alliance Linking Laboratories, Enterprises and societY Stakeholders (Cordis project page), is one out of 17 projects that have received funding under the Horizon Europe ERA 2025 call HORIZON-WIDERA-2025-06-ERA-01 Rolling out the ERA Policy Agenda results. This project aims to contribute to achieving the objectives in the ERA Structural Policy Upscaling knowledge valorisation capacities and activities and ERA Action 7 (ERA Policy Agenda (2025-2027) and 2022-2024)). The German SME Atrineo AG leads the project consortium consisting of the following partners: the Spanish subsidiary Atrineo Iberia, Sploro and the Spanish based International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation (IASP), the French private-for-profit entity Three O’clock, Greek SME ideas forward and UK private-for-profit entity St. John’s Innovation Centre.
The Bridging actions call in the updated Horizon Europe work programme 2026-2027 Horizontal Activities includes three grants to identified beneficiaries, i.e. not open calls for proposals, with a total earmarked budget of 65 million euro. The explanation provided by the European Commission for the earmarked budget for three life sciences databases is that ‘many of these resources depend on fragmented and short-term funding, putting their long-term maintenance and service continuity under pressure. ... The support will cover the specialised scientific and technical work needed to maintain these resources, curate their content and keep pace with growing volumes of biological data. The funding is subject to evaluation of grant agreements, following normal Horizon Europe procedures.’ The breakdown of the budget is as follows: GENCODE - €19 million: to sustain high-quality information on genes, supporting research into how the genome works and its role in health and disease. The action will involve the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation. UniProt - €30 million: to maintain and develop information on proteins and their functions, supporting biomedical research and biotechnology. The action will involve its European consortium partners, EMBL-EBI and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. Europe PMC - €8 million: to sustain access to life sciences research literature and its links to underlying scientific data. The action will be carried out by EMBL-EBI. All information is available in the European Commission news article.
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The ATHENA project addresses emerging risks for the water sector in operational technology created by digitalisation. The project responds to Digital Europe call DIGITAL-ECCC-2022-CYBER-03-UPTAKE-CYBERSOLUTIONS – Uptake op Innovative Cybersecurity Solutions. The project started in September 2023 and will run until November 2026. De Vlaamse Waterweg - The Flemish Waterway participates in the project to enhance the resilience of the organisation by co-developing targeted training modules for operational technology environments.
