Horizon Europe 2025: European Innovation Ecosystems
Funding to create innovation ecosystems that support the scaling of companies and spur innovation across the EU, with up to €8m per project.
Opportunity Details
When
Registration Opens
06/05/2025
Registration Closes
20/01/2026
Award
Up to €8m for some calls, with a single additional large project of €108m.
Organisation
Horizon Europe
The European Innovation Ecosystems work programme aims to create and expand more connected, inclusive, and efficient innovation ecosystems that support the scaling of companies and spur innovation.
Deep tech innovations, emerging from a growing cohort of innovative startups in the EU, have the potential to deliver transformative solutions in the face of global challenges, but much of the knowledge produced by researchers working in Europe remains unexploited. A key reason behind this failure is the fact that researchers in Europe are less well integrated into networks of universities, start-ups, large companies and venture capitalists, which account for a large share of successful commercialisations in high-tech sectors. Strengthening the networks, providing them with the infrastructure and resources they need, is a crucial step to putting research and innovation at the heart of the EU economy.
The work programme contains actions under two destinations: CONNECT and INNOVSMES.
- The actions under the CONNECT destination focus on building interconnected and inclusive innovation ecosystems across the EU. Drawing on the existing strengths of national, regional and local ecosystems and encouraging the involvement of all actors and territories, this destination aims to reinforce network connectivity for sustainable business growth and to define and achieve ambitious collective goals for the benefit of society, including green, digital, and social transitions. It supports the flagship actions on accelerating and strengthening innovation in European Innovation Ecosystems across the EU and addressing the innovation divide, funding for deep tech scale-ups and enabling deep tech innovation through experimentation spaces and public procurement under the New European Innovation Agenda.
- The action under the INNOVSMES destination will support the European Partnership on Innovative Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), which will help innovative SMEs to increase their research and innovation (R&I) capacity and productivity and successfully embed in global value chains and access new markets.
Details of the calls within each destination are given below. Closing date is 19 June 2025 for the €108m INNOVSMES call “European Partnership on Innovative SMEs”: the CONNECT calls have closing dates of 15 October 2025 or 20 January 2026.
UK organisations and businesses can apply for Horizon Europe funding, working as part of a three-country consortium with at least one member from within the EU. If you are interested in one of the calls and would like to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s European Programmes team.
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In line with Horizon Europe, all the actions supported by this call are open to actors from EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries.
Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call/topic conditions, only legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes, as beneficiaries, three legal entities independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:
- at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State;
- and at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries (this includes the UK).
Our European team can help you find eligible partners to form a consortium.
There may be further eligibility conditions for specific topics. Please check the Work Programme and talk to our team to ensure your eligibility before applying.
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Single-stage calls closing 15 Oct 2025:
- Preparatory action for setting up joint programmes among innovation ecosystems actors – €5m total budget, c.€1m per project
- Implementing co-funded action plans for connected regional innovation valleys – €35m total budget, c.€5-8m per project
Single-stage calls opening Sep 2025, closing date 20 Jan 2026:
- European network of national competence centers for innovation procurement – c.€4.5m for a single project
- Expanding Investment Ecosystems – €5m total budget, c.€1m per project
- Scaling up deep tech ecosystems – c.€5m for a single project
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European Partnership on Innovative SMEs – €108m over 3 years for a single project. The deadline to apply for this call is 19 June 2025.
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