Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 published

The European Commission has published the main Work Programme 2025 for the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon Europe. 

The publication includes the following funding lines:

• Research infrastructures
• the six thematic Clusters
• the EU Missions
• European Innovation Ecosystems
• Widening participation and strengthening the ERA (European Research Area)
• New European Bauhaus Facility

An updated version of the Work Programme 2023-2025 for the Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions (MSCA) has also been published.

Simplification and Flexibility in Topic Design

The European Commission aimed to reduce the work programme in length by decreasing theoverall number of topics, shortening topic descriptions and minimising single-project topics. Topics are kept more open by being less prescriptive, leaving more freedom to applicants for different pathways towards expected outcomes. The roll-out of lump sum grants was continued: they represent more than 35% of the budget of the Work Programme 2025. A number of non-financial obligations (such as the approach to the ‘do no significant harm’ principle and the check on the robustness of AI tools) were revised and simplified, resulting in a shorter proposal form.

Two-Stage Evaluation Process

The Work Programme 2025 features 29 topics using two-stage evaluation (mainly in Clusters 1, 4 and 6). Around 20 of these will be evaluated blindly in the first stage to collect additional evidence for a sound assessment of the blind evaluation methodology, which aims to avoid the potential risk of bias.

HEU Work programme 2025 on the Funding & Tenders Portal (under "Work programmes & call documents")

(Source: KoWi)