Understanding capital market dynamics for increased investment in New European Bauhaus projects in neighbourhoods

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Code: 40169 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-NEB-2026-01-BUSINESS-02 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: New European Bauhaus | Start submission calls: 05/05/2026 | End submission calls: 01/12/2026

Increased investment in projects for the transformation of neighbourhoods in line with the New European Bauhaus (NEB) may be hindered due to a discrepancy between the demand and supply of capital in terms of size, diversity, returns, and risk. Small-scale NEB-aligned projects typically encounter large, short-term oriented, and highly risk-averse investment funds, which seek investment opportunities able to absorb large amounts of funding, driven by present legislation.

Place-based impact investing is an approach that can contribute to investments in NEB-aligned neighbourhood projects by providing risk-adjusted financial returns while creating local social, cultural, aesthetic and environmental value and by helping to meet local needs in terms of community well-being, social inclusion, local economic resilience, and sustainable development.

There is a need for research to understand the capital demand and supply-side aspects that influence and shape investments in NEB-aligned neighbourhood projects and to identify appropriate mechanisms to attract increased investment.

Digital solutions for regulatory compliance through data

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Code: 40166 | Identifier Code: DIGITAL-2026-AI-DATA-10-COMPLIANCE | Programme name: 15593 | Start submission calls: 21/04/2026 | End submission calls: 01/10/2026

This objective will support projects testing digital solutions for transmitting information relevant for compliance with EU legislation (e.g. regulations on environmental issues) and automate the compliance process for a number of pilot use cases. These projects will target regulatory reporting requirements, from aggregate data (e.g., company balance sheets) to detailed data (e.g., transactions, events, and product registrations). The aim is to leverage advanced technologies, including data capturing technologies, automatic transmission, analysis, cloud storage, and encryption, to ensure data security, confidentiality, and regulatory compliance. The strong focus should be given to privacy-preserving technologies to ensure trust between the reporting entity and regulatory authorities, safeguarding data confidentiality while enabling secure and efficient compliance processes.

Additionally, the projects will identify burdensome administrative challenges in the selected sectors that could be addressed by automated data-driven solutions, while close collaboration with reporting entities will be essential to enable direct communication with regulatory agencies for automated updates and ensure compliance with evolving regulations. The approach will prioritize access controls and audit trails to enhance transparency and reduce the risk of non-compliance and penalties. Furthermore, the projects could incorporate the European Digital Identity Wallet, when available, to securely identify individuals and legal entities in data spaces, alongside trust services like electronic seals and ledgers.

EdTech Accelerator

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Code: 40164 | Identifier Code: DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-10-EDTECH | Programme name: 15593 | Start submission calls: 21/04/2026 | End submission calls: 01/10/2026

During recent years, the education and training landscape has been significantly impacted by rapid technological advancements. Innovations like generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), robotics, or extended Reality, to name a few examples, have significant power to reshape the way we teach and learn. There is a crucial need to support the Education Technology (EdTech) sector in Europe, and in particular European start-ups and SMEs, to develop innovative solutions and technologies meeting European values in terms of ethics, inclusion, accessibility, privacy, security and strong pedagogical foundations. This is particularly crucial given the fast-developing technological landscape.

Advanced Digital Skills for AI Uptake in Health

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Code: 40160 | Identifier Code: DIGITAL-2026-SKILLS-10-DIGITAL-HEALTH-STEP | Programme name: 15593 | Start submission calls: 21/04/2026 | End submission calls: 01/10/2026

The academic offer in the area of advanced digital technologies in the EU is still lagging behind other regions of the world, especially when compared to the United Kingdom or the United States[1] even though the number of both bachelor’s and master’s programmes in the EU has increased through the years. Furthermore, apart from delivering excellent programmes in specific digital technologies, there is also a growing demand for interdisciplinary programmes to equip sector specialists with the digital skills to deploy and use advanced digital technologies.

The actions under this topic aim at tackling the lack of academic training offer in advanced digital skills in key digital areas, while triggering a new way of delivering education programmes and training, building partnerships between education and training providers, businesses and research across the EU, and supporting the digital skills necessary for the deployment of digital technologies in strategic sectors.

Support to the implementation of Multi-Country Projects: EDIC Support Hub

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Code: 40157 | Identifier Code: DIGITAL-2026-BESTUSE-MCP-10-HUB | Programme name: 15593 | Start submission calls: 21/04/2026 | End submission calls: 01/10/2026

The objective of the action is to establish an EDIC Support Hub in order to: 

• Ensure that EDICs have the access to comprehensive legal, operational, coordination and support.
• Contribute to the consolidation and long-term sustainability of EDICs.
• Enhance transparency, outreach and access to consolidated information on EDICs, strengthen links with society, the economy and European competitiveness.
• Support the Commission and Member States in creating a steady pipeline of new EDIC initiatives.
• Gather and generate evidence (data promoting EDIC results, quantified where possible) to support the analysis informing the future strategic development of a coherent and resilient EDIC ecosystem aligned with EU digital policy objectives.

Research Support Framework for Situational Awareness on information integrity

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Code: 40154 | Identifier Code: DIGITAL-2026-BESTUSE-RSF-10-AWARENESS | Programme name: 15593 | Start submission calls: 21/04/2026 | End submission calls: 01/10/2026

The overarching objective of this action is as follows:

Creating a common research framework with the necessary infrastructure to enable advanced research and analysis on information integrity in the EU.

In order to achieve this overall objective, the action rests on the following specific objectives:

1. Securing or setting up necessary infrastructure, comprising both hardware and software capacities, needed for advanced research on information integrity, that can be accessed by third parties across the EU
2. Supporting, acquiring or creating a set of dedicated tools to facilitate research on information integrity and the analysis of information manipulation
3. Making the dedicated tools and computational capacity accessible to researchers and civil society, where needed through a transparent and effective access mechanism, and promoting its solutions in the relevant communities
4. Contributing to the DSA’s data access regime by collecting views from the research community on the data access API’s of very large online platforms required by the DSA, documenting best practices and shortcomings, and representing the research community in efforts to improve the capability of API’s
5. Set up and implement a grant structure to distribute funds to third parties from the research and civil society communities

Coordinated topic with India on recycling of EV batteries

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Code: 40152 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-CL5-2026-09-D2-04 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Climate, Energy and Mobility (Cluster 5)(2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 05/05/2026 | End submission calls: 15/09/2026

Projects are expected to build a jointly operated recycling pilot line on Indian soil demonstrating innovative recycling processes for lithium-ion batteries going beyond the current state of the art in terms of recycling efficiency (in particular of Li), environmental impact, cost, and compatibility with different types of batteries (including those currently on the market and to be anticipated in the coming years).

The pilot line must be able to process black mass including mixed chemistries with Li as end product, with a purity level suitable for Cathode Active Material (CAM). Recovery of graphite or silicon/graphite in various compositions should also be addressed. Adequate benchmarking figures must be provided to show progress beyond the state of the art.

Full-scale demonstration of heat upgrade solutions in industrial processes

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Code: 40149 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-CL5-2026-09-D4-08 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Climate, Energy and Mobility (Cluster 5)(2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 05/05/2026 | End submission calls: 15/09/2026

This topic aims to satisfy the need for process heat in the more industrial sectors by upgrading excess/waste heat from the process itself, possibly combined with heat recovered in nearby locations or local renewable heat, as a cost-efficient way to improve energy efficiency and reduce the GHG emissions and air pollutants and the use of fossil fuels. Thermal and/or electrical energy storage can be integrated, if it can contribute to better matching heat sources with process needs and/or to offer more flexible electricity consumption from the grid.

The temperature of the heat supplied to the process is not specified, but the proposals will be evaluated on their potential to enable the deployment of heat upgrade solutions in more sector(s) and process(es), where they are not yet state-of-the art.

Low disturbance prefabrication approaches for deep renovation of multi-storey buildings (Built4People Partnership)

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Code: 40146 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-CL5-2026-09-D4-02 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Climate, Energy and Mobility (Cluster 5)(2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 05/05/2026 | End submission calls: 15/09/2026

Meeting Europe’s ambition for the renovation of the housing stock requires innovative approaches that improve buildings’ energy performance and occupants’ satisfaction, at a reduced cost while speeding up the renovation process and minimising impact on the construction site and disturbance for occupants. Renovation approaches should cover the whole workflow from design, off-site manufacturing and on-site installation to strategies for maintenance, operation and end of life.

Innovative technologies and solutions to improve wind energy systems supporting the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan on wind

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Code: 40143 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-CL5-2026-09-D3-03 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Climate, Energy and Mobility (Cluster 5)(2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 05/05/2026 | End submission calls: 15/09/2026

The action contributes to address the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan’s research and innovation priorities and targets for wind energy, as defined by the Implementation Working Group (IWG) on wind energy, the European Technology and Innovation Platform on wind energy (ETIP Wind) and the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) joint programme on wind energy.

Validating policies and business models for affordable and sustainable housing (Built4People Partnership)

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Code: 40140 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-CL5-2026-09-D4-04 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Climate, Energy and Mobility (Cluster 5)(2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 05/05/2026 | End submission calls: 15/09/2026

The Renovation Wave strategy sets out measures across the whole renovation chain that aim to increase the rate and depth of renovations.

One of the key principles for housing renovation towards 2030 and 2050 is affordability, i.e. making energy efficient, comfortable, healthy, sustainable and climate-resilient buildings widely available, in particular for medium and lower-income households and vulnerable people and areas.

A better understanding of the impact of current policy frameworks on the affordable housing sector and on energy poverty is needed.

Producing battery-grade materials for electrodes through sustainable processing and refining of raw materials or developing bio-based materials (BATT4EU Partnership)

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Code: 40137 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-CL5-2026-09-D2-01 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: Climate, Energy and Mobility (Cluster 5)(2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 05/05/2026 | End submission calls: 15/09/2026

Proposals under this topic are expected to address all aspects for one of the following categories:

1. Sustainable Processing and Refining of next generation batteries-grade Material

OR:

2. Utilising Bio-based Raw Materials for Battery Electrode Materials