Horizon Europe calls 2026 run across the EU’s €14 billion 2026-2027 Work Programme, published by the European Commission on 11 December 2025 and searchable on the Funding & Tenders Portal. Pre-award teams should track submission status and cluster deadlines on the Portal, then verify each call’s specific open access and data-sharing conditions before drafting a proposal.
The Horizon Europe Funding & Tenders Portal is the European Commission’s single official system for publishing, filtering and submitting proposals to every Horizon Europe call for proposals.
- What Is the Horizon Europe 2026-2027 Work Programme?
- How Do You Track Open Horizon Europe Calls in 2026?
- What Are the Key Horizon Europe 2026 Call Deadlines?
- What Open Access and Data-Sharing Obligations Apply Before You Submit?
- Common Questions About Horizon Europe Calls 2026
- Implications for Pre-Award Teams
What Is the Horizon Europe 2026-2027 Work Programme?
The European Commission adopted the Horizon Europe 2026-2027 Work Programme on 11 December 2025, releasing over €14 billion in funding opportunities across the programme’s final two-year cycle, according to UK Research Office (UKRO) and Innovate UK Business Connect reporting on the publication. This is the last work programme under the current 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework.
The European Research Council (ERC) and European Innovation Council (EIC) published their 2026 work programmes separately and earlier in the cycle. Pre-award offices tracking “all open calls” therefore need to check the main Work Programme package and these two standalone documents together, not the main package alone.
- Horizontal activities, including a new €540 million call supporting the Clean Industrial Deal and AI in Science
- Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) postdoctoral, doctoral network and staff exchange strands
- Six thematic Clusters: Health; Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society; Civil Security for Society; Digital, Industry and Space; Climate, Energy and Mobility; and Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
- Five EU Missions: Adaptation to Climate Change, Cancer, Restore our Ocean and Waters, Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, and Soils
How Do You Track Open Horizon Europe Calls in 2026?
The EU Funding & Tenders Portal is the single official source for every Horizon Europe call; institutions should treat it, not third-party digests or mailing lists, as the system of record for deadlines and eligibility rules. Portal searches can be filtered and saved so that new topics matching an institution’s research areas trigger an automatic alert.
An effective pre-award tracking routine has four steps:
- Filter the Portal’s “Search Funding & Tenders” screen by programme (Horizon Europe), submission status (“Forthcoming” or “Open for submission”), and programme part or cluster.
- Save the search and register for email notifications so new topics appear automatically rather than being missed between manual checks.
- Cross-check each topic’s call identifier (for example HORIZON-MSCA-2026-PF-01) against the relevant cluster or actions Work Programme PDF for full scope and evaluation criteria.
- Log the topic’s submission deadline, type of action (RIA, IA, CSA or COFUND), and open science conditions in the institution’s internal pipeline before allocating proposal-writing resources.
National Contact Points add a second layer of verification: UK applicants, for example, can confirm topic scope and competitiveness with UKRI’s National Contact Point team before committing resources to a full proposal.
What Are the Key Horizon Europe 2026 Call Deadlines?
Most single-stage calls that opened in early 2026 close in September or October 2026, though Clusters 1, 4, 5 and 6 include topics with earlier or later cut-offs, according to Innovate UK Business Connect’s analysis of the published Work Programme. Pre-award teams should check each cluster individually rather than assume a single portfolio-wide deadline.
| Call | Reference | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026 | HORIZON-MSCA-2026-PF-01 | 9 September 2026 |
| MSCA Doctoral Networks 2026 | HORIZON-MSCA-2026-DN-01 | 24 November 2026 |
| ERC Proof of Concept 2026 | ERC-2026-POC | 17 September 2026 |
| Restore our Ocean and Waters Mission calls | Mission-specific topics | 23 September 2026 |
| EU Space Research (Cluster 4, HaDEA-managed) | Cluster 4 topics | 2026 call, €90.97 million budget |
These dates illustrate the spread across strands rather than an exhaustive list. Every topic carries its own deadline on the Portal, and multi-stage calls add an earlier outline-proposal cut-off before the full submission date.
What Open Access and Data-Sharing Obligations Apply Before You Submit?
Every Horizon Europe grant agreement carries mandatory open science obligations that sit alongside the topic-specific scientific requirements, and reviewers assess a proposal’s data management approach as part of the excellence criterion. Confirming these terms before submission avoids a compliance gap that would otherwise surface only at the grant agreement stage.
Three obligations apply to essentially every Horizon Europe-funded output:
- Immediate open access to peer-reviewed publications, with no embargo period, deposited in a trusted repository and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) or an equivalent licence.
- A Data Management Plan (DMP) as a mandatory deliverable, with a first version due within six months of the project start and updated as data-generation plans evolve.
- FAIR data handling — Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable — applied under the principle of “as open as possible, as closed as necessary,” with closure permitted only for justified reasons such as intellectual property, personal data or security.
Individual calls layer additional conditions on top of these baseline rules. A Cluster 1 (Health) topic handling clinical data, for example, carries stricter personal-data provisions than a Cluster 4 digital-infrastructure topic. Call-specific conditions are published in the topic’s own annex, not just the general Work Programme introduction, so pre-award teams must read both documents before finalising the proposal’s data management section.
For terminology used across these obligations — contributor roles, persistent identifiers, licensing terms — the CASRAI Dictionary provides standards-aligned definitions that research administration teams can cite directly in DMPs and internal guidance.
Common Questions About Horizon Europe Calls 2026
Where can I find the official list of open Horizon Europe calls for 2026?
The EU Funding & Tenders Portal is the European Commission’s official system listing every open, forthcoming and closed Horizon Europe call. Filter by programme, submission status and cluster, then save the search to receive automatic email alerts when new matching topics are published.
How much funding is available in the Horizon Europe 2026-2027 work programme?
The Commission made over €14 billion available across the 2026-2027 Work Programme, published 11 December 2025, covering MSCA, Research Infrastructures, the six thematic Clusters, the five Missions, and horizontal strands such as the Clean Industrial Deal call.
Do Horizon Europe grants require open access to publications?
Yes. Horizon Europe requires immediate open access with no embargo for all peer-reviewed publications, deposited in a trusted repository under a CC BY licence or equivalent, with open metadata describing the funding and licensing terms.
What is a Data Management Plan and when is it due?
A Data Management Plan (DMP) sets out how a project will generate, document, share and preserve research data under FAIR principles. It is a mandatory Horizon Europe deliverable, with a first version due within six months of the project start date.
Implications for Pre-Award Teams
Treating call-tracking and open science compliance as two separate workflows creates risk: a proposal can clear the Portal’s deadline filter yet still fail a topic’s data-sharing conditions during grant preparation. Pre-award offices get better outcomes by building a single checklist that logs the deadline, the type of action, and the open access and DMP conditions from the same read-through of the topic text.
The 2026-2027 Work Programme is the final cycle before the next Multiannual Financial Framework, so institutions should expect the Commission to keep tightening open science verification at the reporting stage rather than relax it. Early, consistent DMP practice now reduces rework at grant signature. Research administration teams building this capability can align proposal, compliance and reporting language using the CASRAI research administration resources.
