REA provides overview of results of five recent Horizon Europe calls

The European Commission's Research Executive Agency has provided an overview of five recent calls in Horizon Europe which taken together received a total of 3,422 projects. Some calls experience an 80% increase in proposals compared to previous years. Evaluations of the proposals will now commence with the help of independent experts. Successful projects will be informed as of January 2026.

The 2025 call for Horizon Europe ‘Culture, creativity and inclusive society’ attracted 1,331 proposals, marking a record-breaking year for the social sciences and humanities and other fields. This represents an 80% increase in applications compared to 2024 - and nearly 250% more than in 2021, when Horizon Europe was first launched.

Two calls for proposals have recently closed under the Widening part of the Horizon Europe ‘Widening Participation and spreading excellence’ (WIDERA) programme. The ERA Fellowships call (building on the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships action) received 1,758 applications - an 85% increase from last year. The Hop-On facility call received 61 proposals.

Also under the WIDERA programme, 113 project proposals have been submitted for the seven topics under the Reforming and Enhancing the European R&I system call in the ERA part of the programme. As expected, the ‘Rolling out the ERA Policy Agenda results’ bottom-up topic has received most of the proposals (75), with applicants competing to showcase their contributions to policy areas such as open science, research assessment, research careers, knowledge valorisation, or research management.

The 18 topics under the Horizon Europe’s ‘Research Infrastructures’ programme call have attracted 159 project proposals.

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