The proposals cover a wide range of topics, such as strengthening democracy, safeguarding and promoting cultural heritage, improving cross-border access to research infrastructures, and supporting researchers’ career and mobility.
The 3,422 project proposals cover various Horizon Europe programmes, managed by the European Research Executive Agency (REA) – with some calls experiencing an 80% increase in proposals compared to previous years.
Applicants’ ideas include strengthening the science for policy ecosystem; addressing career barriers of underrepresented and marginalised researchers; attracting international researchers in Widening countries; tackling social, economic and political inequalities, and supporting human capital development.
Evaluations of the proposals will now commence with the help of independent experts. Successful projects will be informed as of January 2026 and start their EU-funded research journey soon after that.
See below the number of proposals per call and key highlights.
Supporting culture, creativity and inclusive society
The 2025 call for Horizon Europe ‘Culture, creativity and inclusive society’ attracted 1,331 proposals, marking a record-breaking year for the social sciences and humanities and other fields. This represents an 80% increase in applications compared to 2024 – and nearly 250% more than in 2021, when Horizon Europe was first launched.
The programme supports research across three key areas:
- Democracy and governance: 413 applications.
- European cultural heritage and creative industries – single-stage: 295 applications, two-stage: 161 applications.
- Social and economic transformation – single-stage: 414 applications, two-stage: 48 applications.
In total, €297.3 million has been allocated to advance Europe’s cultural and inclusive future.
Widening participation and spreading excellence
Two calls for proposals have recently closed under the Horizon Europe ‘Widening Participation and spreading excellence’ programme.
The ERA Fellowships call received 1,758 applications – an 85% increase from last year. Building on the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships action, ERA Fellowships are open to researchers of any nationality who want to join R&I projects by either coming to the EU from anywhere in the world or moving within the EU to a Widening country. The available budget for this call is €8 million.
The Hop-On facility call received 61 proposals. This instrument allows entities from Widening countries to join certain ongoing R&I projects. The available budget for this call is €40 million.
Reforming and enhancing the research and innovation system
113 project proposals have been submitted for the seven topics under the Horizon Europe ‘Reforming and Enhancing the European R&I system’ programme. €44 million has been allocated to advance a more inclusive and stronger European Research Area (ERA).
Applicants were invited to propose ideas to: address career barriers faced by underrepresented and marginalised researchers; strengthen a robust, interconnected science for policy ecosystem; and host the 2027 edition of Science Comes to Townby organising activities that bring citizens and researchers together.
As expected, the ‘Rolling out the ERA Policy Agenda results’ bottom-up topic has received most of the proposals (75), with applicants competing to showcase their contributions to policy areas such as open science, research assessment, research careers, knowledge valorisation, or research management.
Research Infrastructures
The 18 topics under the Horizon Europe’s ‘Research Infrastructures’ programme call have attracted 159 project proposals.
Applicants are proposing solutions to: reduce the environmental footprint of research infrastructures; improve cross-broader access to services and data; enhance expertise, mobility, and career opportunities for technical staff; foster a stronger open science culture and data management skills at all career levels; integrate AI in science and the Destination Earth initiative.
The available budget for this call is €400.5 million.
Submissions per call and topic
| CALLS FOR PROPOSALS | NAME OF THE CALL OR TOPIC | NUMBER OF PROPOSALS RECEIVED |
|---|---|---|
| Widening participation and spreading excellence | ||
| HORIZON-WIDERA-2025-TALENTS-01-01 | ERA Fellowships | 1,758* |
| HORIZON-WIDERA-2025-03-ACCESS-01 | Hop-on facility | 61 |
| Cluster 2: “Culture, creativity and inclusive society” | ||
| HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-DEMOCRACY | Democracy and Governance | 413 |
| HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-HERITAGE | European Cultural Heritage and Creative Industries (single stage) | 295 |
| HORIZON-CL2-2025-02-HERITAGE | European Cultural Heritage and Creative Industries (two stage) | 161 |
| HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-TRANSFO | Social and Economic Transformation (single stage) | 414 |
| HORIZON-CL2-2025-02-TRANSFO-04 | Social and Economic Transformation (two stage) | 48 |
| Research Infrastructures | ||
| HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV | Developing, consolidating and optimising the European research infrastructures landscape, maintaining global leadership | 5 topics | 52 |
| HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC | Enabling an operational, open and FAIR European Open Science Cloud ecosystem | 5 topics | 34 |
| HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-TECH | Next generation of scientific instrumentation, tools and methods and advanced digital solutions | 4 topics | 47 |
| HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV | RIs services to support health research, the green transition, the digital transformation, and frontier knowledge | 4 topics | 26 |
| Reforming and enhancing the R&I system | ||
| HORIZON-WIDERA-2025-06-ERA-1 | Rolling out the ERA Policy Agenda results | 75 |
| HORIZON-WIDERA-2025-06-ERA-2 | Enable sustained coordination and guidance at the European level on institutional non-profit open access publishing | 3 |
| HORIZON-WIDERA-2025-06-ERA-3 | Research and innovation to provide evidence that support reforms of research assessment | 5 |
| HORIZON-WIDERA-2025-06-ERA-4 | Investigating and addressing career barriers faced by underrepresented and marginalised researchers | 14 |
| HORIZON-WIDERA-2025-06-ERA-5 | Programme-level collaboration | 3 |
| HORIZON-WIDERA-2025-06-ERA-6 | Strengthening of the European Science for Policy Ecosystem | 5 |
| HORIZON-WIDERA-2025-06-ERA-7 | Science comes to town 2027 | 8 |
*This number does not include proposals from Outermost regions.