The European Commission has published all of the 2026-27 Horizon Europe Work Programmes, which list the funding opportunities under the 2026-27 call topics.

No matter your field – whether you’re a business, university, research institute, charity, or not-for-profit – you could be eligible to apply for Horizon Europe funding to advance your cutting-edge research and innovation, fostering lasting impact and meaningful change.

Our Innovate UK European Team and UK National Contact Points can support you with these exciting potential funding opportunities and help you get the most out of Horizon Europe.

Applying from the UK

UK organisations and businesses can apply for Horizon Europe funding, working as part of a consortium with at least three countries, one of which must be an EU Member State (see “Who can apply?” below). 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.

If you have formed a consortium and are ready to apply, you can do so via the Horizon Europe Funding and Tenders Portal. Click here to see all open Horizon Europe calls (you will need to search for the title of the call you are interested in).

Mission: Restore our Ocean and Waters

This Mission tackles one of our most pressing challenges-restoring the health of the ocean, seas, and inland waters-by 2030. Through research and innovation, public engagement, and targeted blue investments, this Mission takes a systemic approach to:

1. protect and restore marine and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity, in line with the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030
2. prevent and eliminate pollution of our ocean, seas and waters, in line with the EU Action Plan Towards Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil
3. make the sustainable blue economy carbon-neutral and circular, in line with the proposed European Climate Law and the comprehensive vision outlined in the Sustainable Blue Economy Strategy

To ensure implementation across Europe, and beyond, the Mission operates through area-based “lighthouses” in major sea and river basins: Atlantic-Arctic, Mediterranean Sea, Baltic-North Sea, and Danube-Black Sea. These lighthouses are living labs for demonstrating, deploying and scaling up solutions.

A central part of the Mission is the Mission Charter, which invites Member States, regions, cities, and stakeholders to pledge concrete actions that support the Mission’s objectives, with over 1,000 pledges already contributing to the Mission, and a dedicated Mission Portal which enables progress tracking, knowledge sharing, and access to funding and partnership opportunities.

Supporting the digital transition, the Mission is also developing a Digital Twin Ocean, an innovative, virtual representation designed to integrate a vast array of data and simulate the effects of different actions on marine and freshwater ecosystems and predict future scenarios. This cutting-edge tool will enable real-time monitoring, predictive analysis, and better-informed decision-making for sustainable management of marine and freshwater ecosystems across Europe.

The Mission engages and empowers a wide range of stakeholders,  public and private organisations, national, regional and local  actors, coastal, riparian, islands communities,  businesses,  and citizens to actively participate in shaping the future of Europe’s marine and freshwater ecosystem.

Potential applicants may also be interested in Horizon Europe 2026-27: Climate, Energy and Mobility (Cluster 5), which has several maritime-themed calls, and Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment (Cluster 6), both with various closing dates until Sep 2027.