Consolidation of the research infrastructure landscape – individual support for evolution, long-term sustainability and emerging needs of pan-European research infrastructures

Forthcoming

This is the status published by the official source.

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Expected Outcome:
Project results are expected to contribute to several of the following expected outcomes:

• better structured and strengthened European research infrastructure landscape;
• new services available to a wider user community, including participants in other parts of Horizon Europe, allowing to better tackle scientific and societal challenges;
• increased capacity to address EU policy priorities and/or socio-economic challenges;
• reinforced global competitiveness of the European Research Area;
• reduction of environmental (including climate-related) impacts as well as optimisation of resource and energy consumption integrated through the full life cycle of research infrastructures;
• increased long-term sustainability of European research infrastructures. Scope:
This topic targets the consolidation of the EU research infrastructures landscape through the support, together with the countries that are members of the research infrastructures, to the strengthening, long-term sustainability, reorientation or evolution of ESFRI Landmarks or European Research Infrastructure Consortia (ERICs).
The proposed action should justify the specific objectives and focus on activities that are critical for the sustainability and optimised use of the ESFRI Landmarks or ERICs, such as activities aiming at several of the following objectives:

• enlargement of the membership or broadening of the base of participating countries, notably widening countries and candidate countries;
• addressing critical aspects raised following an assessment or monitoring exercise, e.g. in the context of ESFRI activities;
• reinforcing international cooperation;
• revision of business/funding plan;
• development of managerial and technical skills for research infrastructure staff;
• structuring and strengthening of national/thematic nodes;
• extension of remote and/or virtual access;
• management of research data according to the FAIR principles;
• reorientation or evolution of the research infrastructure scope;
• development, update and or implementation of impact assessment of the research infrastructure. In case of reorientation or evolution of the research infrastructure scope, activities should fill gaps in the research infrastructures landscape[1], enabling the research infrastructure to address new research or societal challenges and/or serve new user communities, increasing and improving service capacity and/or integrating new resources/facilities.
Due attention must be given to related EU initiatives, strategies and priorities and, when relevant, to complementarity and relevance to activities in other parts of Horizon Europe, such as better addressing SRIAs of Horizon Europe partnerships. Proposals should explain any synergies with previous or current EU grants notably under the research infrastructures part of the Horizon Europe work programme e.g. INFRADEV and INFRATECH grants.
Given the funding rate, proposals should ensure a minimum adequate backing by the beneficiaries, who should provide the remaining share for the activities covered by the Grant Agreement and foster the sustainability of the ESFRI Landmark or ERIC.
Specific attention should be given, where relevant, to the greening of technologies and methodologies used by the research infrastructure, to the interaction with industry/SMEs, to the fostering of the innovation potential of the infrastructures, and to their integration into local, regional and global innovation ecosystems.
[1] Although the action aims at individual support to a pan-European research infrastructure, applicants should consider the ESFRI Landscape Analysis and liaise during the action with other relevant ESFRI/ERICs to ensure complementarity.

Status

Forthcoming

Deadline

15 June 2027 (time not stated)

Opens

9 March 2027

Published

12 December 2025

Total budget

€29,500,000

Grant range

€3,000,000 – €4,500,000

Country

European Union (EU-wide)

Programme

Horizon Europe (HORIZON)

Funder

European Commission

Official page

Open at the source portal

What applying involves

13 steps, all of them taken from this call's own documents.

Understand the call

• Read the call on the source portal and download its documents
• Write the proposal against the award criteria and thresholds standard for this programme

  are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes — conditions §5a

• Check the grant's legal and financial set-up standard for this programme

  Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (2021-2025) . The funding rate is 80% of the eligible costs. described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes. Specific conditions … — conditions §6

• Note the opening date — a proposal cannot be submitted before it
• Check the amount you plan to request against the call's range

Check you are eligible

• Check every partner is established in an eligible country standard for this programme

  described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide — conditions §2

• Meet the call's other eligibility conditions

  Due to the scope of this topic, proposals must include at least one of the ESFRI Landmarks or European Research Infrastructure Consortia (ERICs) as beneficiaries. Such beneficiaries, and the research infrastructure(s) that they operate, must be explicitly identified in the proposal. For distributed ERIC the ERIC must be the beneficiary. described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes — conditions §3

• Be able to show financial and operational capacity standard for this programme

  described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes — conditions §4

• Check the conditions for financial support to third parties

Prepare the documents

• Prepare Part B of the Application Form standard for this programme

  Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System. — conditions

• Complete the detailed budget table standard for this programme

Submit

• Check the submission and evaluation process standard for this programme

  are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual — conditions §5b

• Submit before the closing date shown above

  The source states the closing day but no closing time — check the portal before the last day. — calls.deadline

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