Horizon Europe funded projects can be found and verified using CORDIS (the European Commission’s project and results database), the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, and the EU Open Data Portal. Together these three sources let research offices and journalists confirm a grantee’s funding claim, check participant lists, and pull bulk data for institutional funding intelligence — without relying on a press release alone.
CORDIS is the European Commission’s public repository of information on all EU-supported research and innovation activities, covering Horizon Europe, Horizon 2020, and earlier framework programmes. Horizon Europe itself is the EU’s research and innovation programme running from 2021 to 2027 with a total budget of €95.5 billion — equivalent to more than £82 billion, per UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). For research administrators fielding a grantee’s funding claim, or journalists fact-checking a university press release, CORDIS and its companion open-data channels are the primary — and only authoritative — verification path.
Table of Contents
- What Is CORDIS and How Does It Differ from the Funding & Tenders Portal?
- How to Search for Horizon Europe Funded Projects on CORDIS
- How to Verify a Horizon Europe Funding Claim
- Open Data, APIs, and Bulk Downloads for Institutional Funding Intelligence
- Common Questions About Finding and Verifying Horizon Europe Projects
What Is CORDIS and How Does It Differ from the Funding & Tenders Portal?
CORDIS (the Community Research and Development Information Service) is the European Commission’s archive of completed and ongoing EU-funded research, published once a project’s grant agreement is signed. It holds project factsheets, participant lists, publications, and results summaries. It is a record-of-outcome database, not a live application system.
The EU Funding & Tenders Portal is the operational counterpart: it hosts open calls, submission tools, and — via its “Projects & Results” screen — a live, filterable list of funded projects that CORDIS later mirrors in fuller narrative form. Research offices verifying a fresh award should check the Portal first, since CORDIS records can lag a signed grant agreement by several weeks.
- CORDIS — narrative factsheets, deliverables, publications, historical coverage back to earlier framework programmes.
- Funding & Tenders Portal — live calls, submission status, the most current funded-project listings.
- Horizon Dashboard — an analytical tool for exploring proposal and project statistics, success rates, and thematic breakdowns.
How to Search for Horizon Europe Funded Projects on CORDIS
Start at the CORDIS “Projects & results” search screen and filter by programme (“Horizon Europe”), then narrow by Call ID or Topic ID if you have one (for example, a Cluster 2 topic under the HORIZON-CL2 series). Country, funding scheme (RIA, IA, CSA, MSCA), and date-range filters further isolate a specific award.
CORDIS also publishes curated “Results Packs” — thematic collections of projects grouped by policy area — which are useful for institutional landscaping rather than single-grant verification. For MSCA-specific searches, note that the 2026 MSCA Doctoral Networks call (reference HORIZON-MSCA-2026-DN-01-01) opened on 28 May 2026, per the UK Research Office (UKRO); calls of this kind appear on the Portal before a full CORDIS factsheet exists.
| Source | Best for | Data format | Update cadence |
|---|---|---|---|
| CORDIS | Narrative verification, deliverables, publications | Web factsheet, CSV/XML export | Post-grant-signature, periodic refresh |
| Funding & Tenders Portal | Live calls, current award lists | Web listing | Continuous |
| EU Open Data Portal | Bulk download, cross-referencing, custom tools | CSV, XML, RDF (Linked Open Data) | Scheduled batch releases |
How to Verify a Horizon Europe Funding Claim
To confirm a grantee’s claim, cross-check the project’s CORDIS factsheet against the institution named in the claim, the grant agreement number, and the coordinating organisation. A genuine Horizon Europe award will show a matching participant entry, a signed grant-agreement number, and a funding scheme code (RIA, IA, CSA, ERC, MSCA, or EIC) consistent with the claim.
Research offices should treat three signals as minimum verification thresholds:
- Grant agreement number matches the one cited in the press release or CV.
- Participant organisation appears in the CORDIS or Portal participant list under the exact legal name, not an informal variant.
- Funding scheme and call reference align with the programme claimed (for instance, an MSCA claim should carry an MSCA call ID, not a generic Horizon Europe label).
Where a claim predates a public CORDIS factsheet, verification should fall back to the Funding & Tenders Portal’s live award listing, which the Commission updates continuously as grant agreements are signed.
Open Data, APIs, and Bulk Downloads for Institutional Funding Intelligence
For research offices building institutional funding intelligence rather than checking a single claim, the EU Open Data Portal offers bulk downloads of the entire CORDIS Horizon Europe dataset in CSV and XML. This supports local analysis, cross-referencing against institutional grant registers, and building custom compliance-tracking tools.
CORDIS data is also published as Linked Open Data, allowing structured queries that connect project records to organisations, topics, and results. Registered users can access a CORDIS API for programmatic, automated retrieval — useful for offices that need to refresh a funding dashboard on a schedule rather than search manually. This combination of bulk export, Linked Open Data, and API access is the layer most institutional guides to horizon europe open calls and project tracking omit, yet it is the layer that turns one-off verification into a repeatable compliance workflow.
Common Questions About Finding and Verifying Horizon Europe Projects
What is CORDIS and is it the official source for Horizon Europe projects?
CORDIS is the European Commission’s public database of EU-funded research and innovation activities, including Horizon Europe. It is the Commission’s own archive, making it the primary reference for confirming a project’s existence, participants, and funding scheme — more authoritative than a university press release or third-party aggregator.
How do I search CORDIS for projects by topic, country, or call?
Use the CORDIS “Projects & results” search page and apply filters for programme, country, funding scheme, and Call or Topic ID. Combining a Topic ID (such as a HORIZON-CL2 reference) with a date range narrows results to a specific call round quickly.
How can I verify that a project claiming Horizon Europe funding is genuine?
Cross-check the grant agreement number, coordinating organisation, and funding scheme code against the CORDIS factsheet or the Funding & Tenders Portal’s live listing. A mismatch on any of these three elements is grounds for further inquiry before repeating the claim institutionally.
Can I download Horizon Europe project data in bulk?
Yes. The EU Open Data Portal publishes the full CORDIS Horizon Europe dataset as CSV, XML, and Linked Open Data, and offers API access for registered users. This supports institutional dashboards, compliance sweeps, and cross-referencing against internal grant registers at scale.
For research offices and journalists alike, the practical takeaway is the same: treat CORDIS and Portal listings as the verification baseline before any funding claim is repeated in an institutional profile, REF-style return, or news report, and use the Open Data Portal’s bulk exports when the task shifts from checking one grant to monitoring a whole portfolio. See CASRAI’s broader coverage of research administration practice for related compliance workflows.
