In Cluster 3, practitioner involvement in projects is strongly recommended. For certain call topics, especially those managed by the European Commission, additional eligibility conditions apply on top of the general eligibility conditions set out in the Horizon Europe General Annexes. These may include the mandatory participation of practitioners or other specific categories of participants, as defined in each call topic. Proposals that do not meet these mandatory conditions are considered ineligible, meaning that their content is neither evaluated by experts nor considered for funding.

Unfortunately, according to the European Commission, on average, 13% of applicants fail to properly address these conditions. In 2025, the main reasons for an ineligible proposal were missing key categories of practitioners, involving practitioners only as associated partners, or submitting an incomplete practitioner table.

To ensure that a proposal is eligible, consortia are strongly recommended to verify all eligibility conditions at a very early stage. This is particularly important for the required categories of practitioners, their role as beneficiaries, and any restrictive measures related to the participation of specific organisations or countries.

During the 2026 CL3 Information days, held in March, the European Commission provided the following advice for participants regarding the eligibility criteria related to practitioners:

• Ensure that the beneficiary really meets the criteria, e.g. a scientific/academic organisation or a training facility on Disaster Management is not a First Responder.
• Ensure that the minimum number and type of countries and that all categories are covered, e.g. “[…] at least 2 Police Authorities and at least 2 forensic institutes from at least 3 different EU Member States or Associated countries”
• Ensure that the right level of beneficiaries is represented, e.g. “[…] at least 3 government entities responsible for security, […] , at national level.”
• Different departments/services of the same entity/organisation cannot fulfil two criteria, e.g. Law Enforcement Agency & First Responder
• Only consortium beneficiaries can be considered towards the fulfilment of the additional eligibility conditions, i.e. affiliated entities and associated partners do not count
• One beneficiary means one independent legal entity
• One beneficiary can only be considered as one type of practitioner, i.e. different departments of the same legal entity cannot represent different practitioners

In case you still have questions on the additional eligibility rules, please reach out to the National contact point for CL3 in Flanders, Fernanda Werneck (fernanda.werneck@vlaio.be).

For additional information, please consult:

• Information  Day – Horizon Europe, Cluster 3/ guidance video - European Commission (YouTube) 
• Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026–2027 (General Annexes) - European Commission 
• Civil Security for Society Work Programme 2026–2027 - European Commission
• Security Restrictions in Horizon Europe (art. 22.5) and Ownership Control– NCP Flanders Infosheet