Stage 1 – 2026 (To prepare and benchmark breakthrough solutions and explore their feasibility and viability)

• A single legal entity established in a Member State or an Associated Country (this includes the UK) if you are a start-up, SME or research performing organisation (university, research or technology organisation, including teams, individual Principal Investigators and inventors). Larger companies (i.e. which do not qualify as SMEs) are not eligible to apply as a single legal entity.

Stage 2 – 2027 (To further develop the most promising solutions and test them in real world environments and with the involvement of users)

Only proposals that were selected for funding under Stage 1 of the Advanced Innovation Challenges pilot will be eligible to submit a proposal to the Stage 2 call. Applications must come from one of these:

• A single legal entity established in a Member State or an Associated Country as before (research organisations must intend to form a spin-off company)
• A small consortium of two independent legal entities from two different Member States or Associated Countries, or
• A consortium of maximum three eligible independent legal entities (‘multi-beneficiary’) following standard rules i.e. must include at least one 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 Challenge seeks proposals for developing disruptive Physical AI innovations that demonstrate at least two of the following characteristics:

• Intelligent Perception and Cognition – Encompasses robust sensing, understanding, and real-time reasoning capabilities.
• Adaptive Learning and Optimisation – Focuses on continuous improvement, domain-specific adaptation, and intelligent resource management.
• Autonomous Decision-Making and Collective Intelligence – Combines real-time problem-solving with autonomous action and swarm coordination in dynamic environments.
• Human-AI Collaboration and Interaction – Encompasses safe, intuitive interfaces and collaborative robotics for human-AI teamwork.
• Physical Integration and Innovation – Focuses on developing novel sensors, actuators, and materials that advance embodied AI capabilities.

The solutions must also focus on addressing pressing needs in at least one of the following application areas:

• Disaster response and civil security physical agents: AI-powered robotic systems designed to act before, during, or immediately after disasters (natural or man-made), with the aim of saving lives, ensuring safety, and restoring normalcy in hazardous, unpredictable environments.
• Autonomous labs for Scientific Discovery: self-directed scientific environments where AI and robotics design, execute, and analyse experiments with minimal human intervention.
• Personal or professional robot assistants: AI-powered robots designed to support individuals or professionals by automating repetitive, menial, or complex tasks in homes, workplaces, or industrial settings.

Applicants must demonstrate the interest of potential end users and integrators with a view to supporting the application and testing of the proposed solutions in a real-world environment. To enable this, they should have:

• an initial physical AI system prototype tested in the lab
• access to an appropriate infrastructure for data collection and testing, and
• a challenging use case formulated by a potential end-user, supported by a letter of intent or a letter of intent from a robotics integrator, confirming their interest aligned to the needs of the application domain.

For the full scope and stage requirements, see the EIC Work Programme for 2026 (page 66 onwards).

Background and Scope

New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) have the potential to replace, reduce or refine animal use in the testing of medicinal products. Scientific progress in recent decades has delivered several animal-free NAMs that have the potential to transform how we understand human biology and assess the safety, efficacy, and quality testing in the health sector. However, a lack of knowledge, experience and  confidence in the use of such novel methodologies has limited their adoption by end users, including, for example, industry and regulators.

This Challenge competition therefore looks to accelerate the adoption of NAMs in biomedicine and support companies that want to bring NAMs to the market. Applicants should propose innovative and disruptive NAMs addressing one or both of the following areas:

• Preclinical biomedical research
• Testing of medicinal products and medical technologies for safety, efficacy, or quality.

Human organoids or microphysiological systems (e.g. organ-on-chip, disease-on-chip), in chemico methods, digital twins, virtual patient simulations, AI-enhanced predictive models, mechanistic or integrated in silico platforms, 3D- advanced human tissue model are in scope.

Applicants to this Challenge call should already have:

• Proven the viability of their proposed solution in a lab environment at TRL 4 (lab or in silico);
• Have letters of intent of at least one of the following stakeholders: an industrial enduser or regulatory body interested in the proposed project; and
• Have access to an appropriate infrastructure to carry out the planned activities in Stage 1 and 2.

For the full scope and stage requirements, see the EIC Work Programme for 2026 (page 69 onwards).

Watch the Challenge 1 introduction here.

Watch the Challenge 2 introduction here.

If you would like advice on your application, contact the UK’s National Contact Points for Horizon Europe.