Funding trends
Which research fields are growing, and which subjects are emerging, measured on the projects the European Commission has funded and classified.
What this covers. CORDIS projects that carry a euroSciVoc classification — the Commission's own scientific vocabulary — which is 19% of the projects in this corpus, essentially Horizon Europe and the European Research Council. Nothing here is inferred: every subject label is the Commission's, not ours. Projects are counted by their start date, and a project classified under several subjects is counted once under each. Years run 2021–2024, and the window stops there deliberately: CORDIS publishes a project once its grant agreement is signed, so the most recent years are still filling up. Including them showed every field falling 25–38% at once — a publication lag wearing the costume of a trend.
Fields over time
Projects starting each year, 2022–2024. Every panel shares one scale, so the panels can be compared with each other and not only with themselves. Hover any point for its figure.
The series begins in 2022 rather than 2021: Horizon Europe opened in 2021 and that year holds single figures per field, so plotting it would show a programme starting up as though it were research funding surging. The table below carries every year.
Fields, 2024
| Field | Projects | 2023 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| natural sciences | 2,640 | 2,746 | -3.9% |
| engineering and technology | 1,332 | 1,402 | -5.0% |
| social sciences | 1,066 | 1,076 | -0.9% |
| medical and health sciences | 975 | 1,089 | -10.5% |
| humanities | 359 | 381 | -5.8% |
| agricultural sciences | 296 | 295 | +0.3% |
Emerging subjects, 2024
Subjects whose project count grew by at least 50% on a base of at least five projects the year before. The floor matters: without it, one project becoming three is a 200% rise and means nothing.
| Subject | 2023 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| modern history | 8 | 23 | +187.5% |
| food technology | 5 | 11 | +120.0% |
| gender equality | 5 | 11 | +120.0% |
| business and management | 5 | 10 | +100.0% |
| ceramics | 8 | 15 | +87.5% |
| electric vehicles | 6 | 11 | +83.3% |
| natural disasters | 6 | 11 | +83.3% |
| radiation chemistry | 6 | 11 | +83.3% |
| hydrology | 10 | 18 | +80.0% |
| biological interactions | 17 | 30 | +76.5% |
| organ on a chip | 8 | 14 | +75.0% |
| bioeconomy | 19 | 32 | +68.4% |
| chromosomes | 15 | 25 | +66.7% |
| ethnology | 9 | 15 | +66.7% |
| human rights | 6 | 10 | +66.7% |
| nanocomposites | 6 | 10 | +66.7% |
| quasiparticles | 17 | 28 | +64.7% |
| social inequalities | 25 | 41 | +64.0% |
| biogeochemistry | 8 | 13 | +62.5% |
| evolutionary biology | 15 | 24 | +60.0% |
| medicinal chemistry | 5 | 8 | +60.0% |
| water management | 5 | 8 | +60.0% |
| carbohydrates | 14 | 22 | +57.1% |
| solar energy | 7 | 11 | +57.1% |
| waste treatment processes | 7 | 11 | +57.1% |
Recomputed nightly from the CORDIS bulk release. A subject growing here means more funded projects carry that label — not that more money was awarded to it, and not that the field is more likely to be funded.