Europe launches the second major 2026 wave of funding for R&D&I projects

European innovation funding is entering its second major moment of the year. After the first cycle of deadlines, concentrated between winter and spring, the focus now shifts to September, October and November 2026. This final stretch is not played out only in Horizon Europe, the European Union’s framework programme, but also in LIFE, Digital Europe and the European Defence Fund, among others.

In this regard, “the margin for competing in the autumn begins before the summer”, warns Camino Correia, Director of European Programmes at Zabala Innovation. “Between May and June, ideas need to be defined and the consortium closed if we want to have enough time to submit a proposal that is perfect in both substance and form”, she adds.

Horizon Europe

Horizon Europe presents a large number of opportunities with deadlines in September and October. Below, we highlight some of the most relevant.

Health

In health, the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) is preparing its Call 13, expected to be launched in summer 2026, with topics still at draft stage. For this reason, neither the budget nor the closing date has yet been published definitively, but it is emerging as a key call for public-private health consortia during the second half of the year.

Culture, creativity and inclusive society

In this area, one of the framework programme’s major milestones is the call HORIZON-CL2-2026-01 - Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society 2026, which closes on 23rd September and has an indicative budget of €298.5 million. This call is structured around three destinations: Innovative Research on Democracy and Governance, Innovative Research on European Cultural Heritage and Cultural and Creative Industries, and Innovative Research on Social and Economic Transformations. Its topics include gender-based violence against politically active women and LGBTIQ people, democratic reconstruction in post-conflict contexts, a fair and transparent market for cultural content in the age of generative AI, child poverty, access to early education and care, and long-term care policies.

This is joined by the call HORIZON-CL2-2026-02 - Cluster 2 Partnerships, closing on 13 October, with €60 million for the topic HORIZON-CL2-2026-02-TRANSFO-01 - Co-funded European Partnership for Social Transformations and Resilience.

Civil security

This Horizon Europe cluster closes on 5th November and is endowed with €131 million. It funds projects on law enforcement capabilities in the face of new threats, the criminal use of emerging technologies, terrorism and lone-actor violence, border surveillance, critical infrastructure resilience, search and rescue tools and disruptive innovation applied to security. It is one of the clearest windows in the second half of the year for actors in the fields of security, civil protection and territorial resilience.

Space

In the space sector, the call HORIZON-CL4-2026-03 - Space will close on 3rd September, with eight topics spread across four lines: access to space; use of space on Earth, with a focus on telecommunications and observation; space science and exploration; and strengthening European space through critical technologies that reduce external dependencies. The expected opportunities include strengthening the EU’s autonomous access to space through European spaceports, the exploitation and scientific analysis of space data, and several lines linked to Earth observation, telecommunications and European technological autonomy. The call totals approximately €91 million.

Industry

The autumn calendar also includes the closing of the second stage of HORIZON-CL4-2026-02-two-stage, scheduled for 13th October 2026. The call, endowed with €98 million, falls within Horizon Europe’s industrial pillar and includes three topics: the development of safe and sustainable alternatives to problematic chemicals, the improvement of advanced manufacturing processes through artificial intelligence, and new AI methodologies and technologies for the process industries.

Climate, energy and mobility

In climate, energy and mobility, the call HORIZON-CL5-2026-09 - BATTERIES and ENERGY closes on 15th September and has a budget of more than €223.2 million. It funds projects on sustainable production of materials for battery electrodes, recycling of electric vehicle batteries in cooperation with India, innovative technologies and solutions to improve wind energy systems, energy performance of smart buildings, deep renovation of multi-storey buildings using prefabricated low-disruption approaches, data platforms to integrate whole-life carbon into building information tools, business models and policies for affordable and sustainable housing, and full-scale demonstration of thermal upgrade solutions in industrial processes.

The second major date is 8th October 2026, when HORIZON-CL5-2026-10 - BATTERIES and MOBILITY closes, with €263 million. This call is geared towards integrated production and the development of next-generation lithium batteries for mobility, large-scale demonstrators of connected, cooperative and automated mobility, a European roadmap to strengthen leadership in this field, the use of generative AI to improve perception, decision-making and validation in vehicles, the resilience of logistics chains and multimodal freight transport, sustainable and smart urban mobility, road safety and the resilience of rural areas, and the improvement of multimodal passenger transport through digital technologies and generative and discriminative AI.

This is joined by the closing of the second stage of HORIZON-CL5-2026-08-Two-Stage - CLIMATE, also on 8th October. The call has €45 million for the topic dedicated to closing knowledge gaps on Earth system science in support of global and regional climate assessments, as well as climate policy.

Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment

The first major autumn milestone in this area is HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-BIODIV, closing on 17th September with a budget of €76 million. The call brings together seven topics on biodiversity and ecosystem services, with lines dedicated to insect decline, assessment of underground ecosystems, conservation of deep-sea ecosystems, a nature-positive economy and agrobiodiversity.

This is joined by the closing of the second stage of HORIZON-CL6-2026-02-FARM2FORK, scheduled for 15th September, with €25.5 million for projects aimed at improving the competitiveness of the agricultural sector and strengthening organic farming.

The calendar continues on 30th September 2026 with the deadline for the second stage of HORIZON-CL6-2026-03-GOVERNANCE-01-two-stage, which reserves €12 million for the development of land intelligence solutions based on environmental observations and advanced artificial intelligence to boost sustainable competitiveness and support public policymaking.

Outside the cluster’s ordinary calls, the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) partnership keeps its call open until 22nd September, with a budget of €170.7 million for circular bioeconomy projects, ranging from biorefineries and safe and sustainable bio-based alternatives to polymers, textile fibres, food ingredients and new biomass valorisation models.

The EU Missions

The deadlines for the EU Mission calls all fall in September. The adaptation to climate change mission closes on 23rd September with €82.19 million for national hubs, local adaptation solutions, climate services and protection of heritage from climate impacts. The cancer mission closes on 15th September with €124.19 million for topics such as the virtual human twin, microbiome, clinical trials and quality of life for older oncology patients. The ocean and waters mission runs until 23rd September with €115.3 million, while the climate-neutral cities mission extends until 8th October with €85.5 million for efficient public transport, low-temperature heating and circular construction. As for the soil mission, autumn is split between the single-stage call, which closes on 23rd September; the second stage of the call on living labs, closing on 15th September; and a joint call with the adaptation to climate change mission, endowed with €20 million and with a deadline of 23rd September.

Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area (WIDERA)

ERA Fellowships closes on 9th September with €8 million; Hop-On Facility, on 24th September with €30 million for 60 projects; and Teaming Synergies and Research Management Facility also close on that same day, with €7 million each. These are less massive instruments, but very clear ones for institutions seeking to strengthen excellence, widening and management capacities.

The Clean Industrial Deal call

Within Horizon Europe’s horizontal activities, the call linked to the Clean Industrial Deal, endowed this year with €275 million, deserves attention. Opened in December 2025, this new European Commission initiative will close on 15th September 2026. It targets industrial pilots that are very close to market and is divided between decarbonisation of energy-intensive industries, with €125 million, and clean technologies for climate action, with a further €150 million. Brussels expects to award contributions of between €15 million and €25 million per project, placing this call among the major opportunities for mature industrial demonstrators already close to commercial deployment.

European Defence Fund

The European Defence Fund forms part of this autumn funding map, albeit with its own logic. Its 2026 work programme mobilises just over €1 billion and is structured around 10 calls and 31 topics for collaborative defence research and development. The deadline for submitting proposals is 28th September.

The thematic range includes secure tactical networks using quantum technologies, integration of Galileo’s Public Regulated Service, cloud systems for multidomain military operations, high-performance energy systems, smart textiles and advanced interception capabilities. The barrier to entry is higher here: solid consortia, an industrial base and a very precise fit with eligibility requirements, technological sovereignty and strategic capability development are needed.

LIFE programme

The LIFE programme maintains its four usual sub-programmes and concentrates a significant share of its deadlines in September. For Standard Action Projects, the key date is 22nd September. This is when €173.5 million is allocated to nature and biodiversity, €85.5 million to circular economy and quality of life, and €60 million to climate mitigation, adaptation and governance. These projects are closer to demonstration, implementation and governance than to classic collaborative research.

The CET sub-programme, for the clean energy transition, closes on 16th September. It has €85.5 million and addresses heating and cooling, energy legislation, building renovation, the energy transition of industry, digitalisation of grid operators, private finance, energy poverty and energy communities. Added to this is the programme’s major strategic call, which requests concept notes before 3rd September and mobilises €163 million for strategic nature, environment and climate action projects.

Digital Europe

The new calls, which opened in April, will close on 1st October. One of them focuses on advanced digital skills: it funds training in artificial intelligence applied to health, support for national digital skills coalitions and an accelerator for educational technology start-ups and SMEs. The other is geared towards making better use of technologies that are already ready for deployment, with lines to strengthen the European electronic health record exchange format and the services of the European Health Data Space, as well as ensuring sufficient coverage of the network of safer internet centres. It is a programme less focused on classic R&D and more on capacities, adoption and implementation.