Strategic Partnerships for Raw Materials: Innovative Approaches for sustainable production of Critical Raw Materials (IA)

Topic updates

23 September 2025

15 September 2025
Reminder on proposal part B page limit and formatting conditions

1. Proposal part B page limit

The title, list of participants and sections 1, 2 and 3, together, should not be longer than page limit, indicated in a proposal part B template inside the Submission System. All tables, figures, references and any other element pertaining to these sections must be included as an integral part of these sections and are thus counted against this page limit.

The page limit will be applied automatically. At the end of a proposal part B template inside the Submission System you can see the structure of the actual proposal that you need to submit, please remove all instruction pages that are watermarked.

If you attempt to upload a proposal longer than the specified limit before the deadline, you will receive an automatic warning and will be advised to shorten and re-upload the proposal. After the deadline, excess pages (in over-long proposals/applications) will be automatically made invisible, and will not be taken into consideration by the experts. The proposal is a self-contained document. Experts will be instructed to ignore hyperlinks to information that is specifically designed to expand the proposal, thus circumventing the page limit.

Please, do not consider the page limit as a target! It is in your interest to keep your text as concise as possible, since experts rarely view unnecessarily long proposals in a positive light.

2.Proposal part B formatting conditions

The following formatting conditions apply (as listed in a proposal part B template inside the Submission System) and will be checked by the Agency during an admissibility check of submitted proposals.

The reference font for the body text of proposals is Times New Roman (Windows platforms), Times/Times New Roman (Apple platforms) or Nimbus Roman No. 9 L (Linux distributions).

The use of a different font for the body text is not advised and is subject to the cumulative conditions that the font is legible and that its use does not significantly shorten the representation of the proposal in number of pages compared to using the reference font (for example with a view to bypass the page limit).

The minimum font size allowed is 11 points. Standard character spacing and a minimum of single line spacing is to be used. This applies to the body text, including text in tables.

Text elements other than the body text, such as headers, foot/end notes, captions, formula's, may deviate, but must be legible.

The page size is A4, and all margins (top, bottom, left, right) should be at least 15 mm (not including any footers or headers).

Proposal part B template inside the Submission System document is tagged. Do not delete the tags; they are needed for our internal processing of information, mostly for statistical gathering. In that light, please do not move, delete, re-order, alter tags in any way, as they might create problems in our internal processing tools. Tags do not affect or influence the outcome of your application.

10 June 2025
Please note that due to a technical issue, during the first days of publication of this call, the topic page did not display the description of the corresponding destination. This problem is now solved. In addition to the information published in the topic page, you can always find a full description of destinations:

* destination 1: Achieving global leadership in climate-neutral, circular and digitised industrial and digital value chains;

* destination 2: Achieving technological leadership for Europe's open strategic autonomy in raw materials, chemicals and innovative materials;

* destination 4: Achieving open strategic autonomy in digital and emerging enabling technologies;

* destination 6: Digital and industrial technologies driving human-centric innovation,

that are relevant for the call in the Work Programme 2025 part for “Industry”. Please select from the work programme the destination relevant to your topic and take into account the description and expected impacts of that destination for the preparation of your proposal.

Strategic Partnerships for Raw Materials: Innovative Approaches for sustainable production of Critical Raw Materials (IA)

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-CL4-INDUSTRY-2025-01-MATERIALS-62

Type of grant: Call for proposals

General information

Programme:

Call: INDUSTRY (HORIZON-CL4-2025-01)

Type of action: HORIZON-IA HORIZON Innovation Actions

Type of MGA: HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based [HORIZON-AG]

Status: Forthcoming

Deadline model: single-stage

Planned Opening Date: 22 May 2025

Deadline dates: 23 September 2025 17:00 (Brussels time)

Topic description

Expected Outcome:

Projects outcomes will enable the expected impacts of the destination by increasing supply security and access to more sustainable produced primary raw materials and secondary raw materials, in particular critical and strategic raw materials for EU^[1] industrial value chains and strategic sectors.

Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

• Strengthen EU cooperation with countries the EU established strategic partnerships on Raw Materials^[2];
• Improved industrial viability, safety and environmental impacts of the operation in a way that leads to measurable improvements;
• Improved diversification of EU sourcing of critical raw materials from third countries;
• Improved responsible supply of raw materials to Europe in line with the EU principles for sustainable raw materials^[3], which are a non-regulatory set of principles based on the EU acquis. They set out requirements for sustainable raw materials and extraction and processing in Europe in terms of social, environmental and economic performance.
• Dissemination and exploitation of projects outputs is tailored for organisations and industry dealing with raw materials in the EU and project partner from Strategic partnership countries.
• Promote the utilisation of UNFC (United Nations Framework Classification for Resources) and UNRMS (United Nations Resource Management System) in the raw materials sector.
• Actions are expected to contribute to the implementation of the EU Critical Raw Materials Act^[4].

Scope:

Proposals should:

• Develop and demonstrate extraction, processing or refining technologies in order to facilitate and increase recovery in exploitation of primary critical raw materials (minerals and metals only). The proposals have to demonstrate (measure and assess) reduced environmental and social impact. Proposals can include additional exploration aspects if duly justified.
• Justify the relevance of all targeted minerals and metals. Priority are the EU critical raw materials. Sea mining is not within the scope of this topic.
• Collaborate with countries with which the EU has signed Strategic Partnerships on Raw Materials.^[2]
• Collaborate with one selected Strategic Partnership country out of the four groups: Group 1 (Argentina, Chile), Group 2 (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Rwanda, Zambia), Group 3 (Kazakhstan, Serbia, Uzbekistan), Group 4 (Australia, Greenland). Group 4 can be extended to countries which will sign strategic partnerships for raw materials before the deadline for applications. The consortia should include raw materials industry from the targeted country in the focussed group, as well as downstream users from the EU. Proposals are expected to focus on one out of four groups.
• Demonstrate technology on mineral resources of the targeted partner country. The environmental (including GHG and other air pollutant emissions, water, soils, biodiversity) and social impacts of technology should be duly measured and assessed.
• Envisage clustering activities with other relevant selected projects for cross-projects co-operation, consultations and joint activities on cross-cutting issues and share of results as well as participating in joint meetings and communication events. To this end proposals should foresee a dedicated work package and/or task, and earmark the appropriate resources accordingly.
• Facilitate the market uptake of solutions developed through industry- and user-driven multidisciplinary consortia covering the relevant value chain and should consider standardisation aspects if relevant. The action should also include the analysis of financial opportunities ensuring the market exploitation and replication of the circular business model behind the developed solutions as new processes, products and/or services.

Proposals submitted under this topic should include a business case and exploitation strategy, as outlined in the introduction to this Destination.

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and/or gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement, however, should you consider it to be of relevance for your specific proposal, you are strongly encouraged to do it.

[1] Annex 1 and Annex 2, Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 establishing a framework for ensuring a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials and amending Regulations (EU) No 168/2013, (EU) 2018/858, (EU) 2018/1724 and (EU) 2019/1020 (OJ L, 2024/1252, 3.5.2024, http).

[2] https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/raw-materials-diplomacy_en

[3] European Commission. Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. (2021). EU principles for sustainable raw materials. Publications Office. https://doi.org/10.2873/12856

[4] Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 establishing a framework for ensuring a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials and amending Regulations (EU) No 168/2013, (EU) 2018/858, (EU) 2018/1724 and (EU) 2019/1020 (OJ L, 2024/1252, 3.5.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1252/oj).

[5] https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/raw-materials-diplomacy_en

Start submission

The submission system is planned to be opened on the date stated on the topic header.

Get support

Please read carefully all provisions below before the preparation of your application.

Online Manual is your guide on the procedures from proposal submission to managing your grant.

Horizon Europe Programme Guide contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe.

Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management.

Research Enquiry Service – ask questions about any aspect of European research in general and the EU Research Framework Programmes in particular.

National Contact Points (NCPs) – get guidance, practical information and assistance on participation in Horizon Europe. There are also NCPs in many non-EU and non-associated countries (‘third-countries’).

Enterprise Europe Network – contact your EEN national contact for advice to businesses with special focus on SMEs. The support includes guidance on the EU research funding.

IT Helpdesk – contact the Funding & Tenders Portal IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc.

European IPR Helpdesk assists you on intellectual property issues.

CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk and ETSI Research Helpdesk – the European Standards Organisations advise you how to tackle standardisation in your project proposal.

The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment – consult the general principles and requirements specifying the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers, employers and funders of researchers.

Partner Search help you find a partner organisation for your proposal.