A Horizon Europe Funding Category
This part of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 addresses the area “Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area” (WIDERA). There are opportunities for different types of organisations, for example, universities, research performing organisations, research funding organisations, research infrastructures, academies and learned societies, civil society organisations, researchers’ organisations, tech startups, incubators, science parks, innovation hubs, and regional, national and city authorities.
Aim of the programme
Widening Participation and Spreading Excellence actions under Horizon Europe contribute to building research and innovation capacity for countries lagging behind (see “Who can apply?” below for a complete list). They will strengthen their potential for successful participation in transnational research and innovation processes, promote networking and access to excellence.
Participants in the programme will be able to upgrade their research and innovation systems, making them stronger and allowing the EU as a whole to advance together, in line with the policy objectives of the European Research Area (ERA).
Actions within the programme
- Teaming for Excellence: Teaming actions will create new or modernise existing centres of excellence in Widening countries through strategic partnerships with leading institutions abroad. The impact will be amplified by the conditionality of securing complementary investment from structural funds or other sources.
- Twinning: Aims to enhance networking activities between research institutions of the Widening countries acting as coordinators, and top-class leading counterparts at EU level, by linking at least two research institutions from 2 different EU countries or Associated Countries. Therefore it builds on the huge potential of networking for excellence through knowledge transfer and exchange of best practices.
- European Excellence Initiative (EEI) :The action will engage with universities and empower them further to be actors of change in research and innovation. It will raise excellence in science and in value creation through deeper and geographically inclusive cooperation in alliances of higher education institutions.
- Pathways to Synergies: The purpose is to provide support for setting up the interfaces between two different funding systems, where barriers still occur due to the mismatches of regional versus European approaches. The main goal of the pathway is to move formerly single beneficiaries of regional funding programmes out of isolation via cross-border collaboration and prepare for participation in Horizon Europe calls.
- Dissemination and Exploitation Support Facility: Will help beneficiaries of widening actions to improve the effectiveness of their dissemination and exploitation and unlock new sources of funding. Improving knowledge diffusion, technology uptake and having spill-over effects is fundamental to ensure that researchers and their institutions build on the latest available knowledge.
- Hop-on Facility: Allows research institutions from Widening countries to join already ongoing research and innovation actions under Horizon Europe Pillar 2 and EIC Pathfinder.
- Excellence Hubs: Will strengthen regional innovation excellence, through innovation ecosystems in Widening countries and beyond, by teaming up, and creating robust linkages between academia, businesses, governments and civil society.
- ERA Chairs: By attracting high-level researchers to a Widening university or research centre, it increases its research capacity. It will establish a research team fully integrated in the coordinator’s institution to significantly improve its research performance in a scientific domain of choice.
- ERA Talents: Aims to boost interoperability of careers and employability of research and innovation talents across sectors, with a centre of gravity in widening countries. Focused on cross-sectoral talent circulation and academia-business collaboration for knowledge transfer.
- COST: Enables researchers and innovators to set-up their own research networks in a wide range of scientific topics.
The work programme is divided into two Destinations: “Widening participation and spreading excellence” and “Reforming and enhancing the European research and
innovation system”.
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The less advanced countries eligible for hosting coordinators of widening actions are Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and all Associated Countries with equivalent characteristics in terms of R&I performance (Albania, Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Tunisia, Türkiye, Ukraine, and once associated Morocco and Egypt), as well as the Outermost Regions (defined in Art. 349 TFEU).
Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call/topic conditions, only legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in Horizon Europe 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 contact our team to ensure your eligibility before applying.
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Single-stage call opening 8 Jan 2026, deadline 9 Apr 2026
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-02- WIDENING-01: Twinning. c.€800,000-€1.5m per project for up to 210 projects; this is made up of €223m for 2026 and €41.5m for 2027.
Single-stage call opening 9 Apr 2026, deadline 9 Sep 2026
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026- 05-WIDENING-01: ERA Fellowships: TMA Postdoctoral Fellowships – European Fellowships. Total budget of c.€8m for up to 50 projects.
Single-stage call opening 23 Apr 2026, deadline 24 Sep 2026
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-01-WIDENING-01: Teaming Synergies. c.€7m for a single project.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-04-WIDENING-01: Research Management Facility. c.€7m for a single project.
Single-stage call opening 13 Jan 2026, deadline 24 Sep 2026
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-03-WIDENING-01: Hop-On Facility. c.€200,000-€600,000 per project for up to 60 projects.
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Single-stage call opening 2 Sep 2026, deadline 4 Mar 2027
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2027-04- WIDENING-01: Excellence Hubs. c.€1.5m-€4.5m per project for up to 30 projects.
Single-stage calls opening 7 Apr 2027, deadline 8 Sep 2027
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2027- 03-WIDENING-01: ERA Fellowships: TMA Postdoctoral Fellowships – European Fellowships. Total budget of c.€8m for up to 50 projects.
Single-stage calls opening 6 Apr 2027, deadline 14 Sep 2027
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2027-02-WIDENING01: ERA Chairs. c.€1.5m-€2.5m per project for up to 80 projects.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2027-02-WIDENING02: ERA Research Managers. c.€1.5m-€2.5m per project for up to 30 projects
Single-stage call opening 5 May 2027, deadline 18 Nov 2027
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2027-01-WIDENING-01: EIC Pre-accelerator – Widening. c.€500,000 to €1m per project for up to 60 projects.
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Single-stage calls opening 10 Dec 2025, deadline 12 Mar 2026
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-06-ERA-01: Pillar I: Accelerating open access and research assessment reforms in ERA. c.€2m-€3m per project for 2 projects.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-06-ERA-02: Pillar I: Building institutional capacities for ethical, equitable, open, and inclusive ERA. c.€1.5m-€2m per project for up to 6 projects.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-06-ERA-03: Pillar II: Strengthening ecosystems for open, ethical, and sustainable ERA. c.€2m per project for 3 projects.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-06-ERA-04: Pillar II: Piloting innovative approaches to support academic startups and spinoffs. c.€2m per project for 2 projects.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-06-ERA-05: Pillar III: Fostering citizen engagement for more responsible and democratic R&I. c.€1m per project for 2 projects.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-06-ERA-06: Pillar III: European Citizens’ Hackathon Championship. c.€3m for a single project.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-06-ERA-07: Pillar III: Science comes to town 2028. c.€6m for a single project.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2026-06-ERA-08: Pillar IV: Advancing Knowledge for ERA. c.€1.5m-€2.5m per project for up to 8 projects.
Single-stage calls opening 8 Dec 2026, deadline 11 Mar 2027
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2027-05-ERA-01: Pillar I: Facilitating development of institutional open access policies through the retention of intellectual property rights. c.€2m for a single project.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2027-05-ERA-02: Pillar II: Talent ecosystems for attractive early research careers. c.€2m-€4m per project for up to 12 projects.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2027-05-ERA-03: Pillar III: Science comes to town 2029. c.€6m for a single project.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2027-05-ERA-04: Pillar III: Promoting public engagement in R&I and scientific literacy. c.€1m per project for 2 projects.
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2027-05-ERA-05: Pillar IV: Upgrading the EU’s independent knowledge on China’s Science, Technology and Innovation system. c.€3m for a single project.