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.

EU Co-funded Partnership on raw materials for the green and digital transition (Co-funded partnership Raw Materials for the Green and Digital Transition)

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-CL4-INDUSTRY-2025-01-MATERIALS-64

Type of grant: Call for proposals

General information

Programme:

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

Type of action: HORIZON-COFUND HORIZON Programme Cofund 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 achieving the expected impacts of the destination by increasing supply security and access to primary and secondary raw materials, in particular critical and strategic raw materials^[1] for EU industrial value chains and strategic sectors.

Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

• Align national R&I priorities in raw materials with EU policy on raw materials.
• Strengthen EU cooperation with countries the EU established strategic partnerships on Raw Materials^[2];
• Improve industrial viability, safety and environmental impacts of the operation in a way that leads to measurable improvements;
• Improve EU sourcing diversification of critical raw materials from third countries;
• Improve 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], particularly to the 2030 benchmarks.

Scope:

• The objective of the European Partnership on Raw Materials is to strengthen the co-ordination of national and regional research programmes in the field of non-energy and non-agricultural raw materials, ensuring common understanding of R&I challenges to achieve the objectives of the Critical Raw Materials Act^[4].
• The Partnership will build on the experience of ERA-NETs: ERA-MIN, ERA-MIN 2 and ERA-MIN 3. The Partnership should cover the whole raw materials value chain including exploration, extraction, processing technologies, and recycling and improve circularity. Sea mining is excluded from this topic.
• Proposals should pool the necessary financial resources from the participating national (or regional) research programmes with a view to implementing joint annual calls for proposals resulting in grants to third parties with EU co-funding in this area. Financial support provided by the participants to third parties is one of the primary activities of this action in order to be able to achieve its objectives.
• As specified in the eligibility conditions, the Partnership is open to all EU Member States, associated countries to Horizon Europe, OECD countries, African Union Member States^[6], MERCOSUR, CARIFORUM, Andean Community and countries with which the EU has concluded strategic partnerships on raw materials^[2] as well as trade (or association/economic partnership or equivalent) agreements containing raw materials cooperation provisions (i.e. Energy and Raw materials chapters)^[8]. Participation remains open to those wanting to join during the Partnership’s lifetime.
• Beneficiaries should preferably be national, regional or local institutions responsible for programming research and innovation activities in raw materials. To ensure alignment of R&I activities and raw materials policy participation is also additionally open to relevant Ministries and public institutions responsible for raw materials and R&I policy.
• This Partnership should be implemented through a joint programme of activities ranging from research to coordination and networking activities, including training, demonstration, piloting and dissemination activities, to be structured along the following main building blocks:
  • Joint annual calls for R&I activities;
  • Facilitating further uptake and commercialisation of developed R&I results;
  • Clustering of projects and synthesising of R&I results;
  • Coordinating research programmes between EU and its Member States and participating third countries and trigger combined action;
  • Serving as a centre for knowledge on partner countries’ R&I programmes and activities in raw materials.
• Actions should also provide measures contributing to the objectives of the Critical Raw Materials Act^[9] and of EU raw materials policy.
• Partners are expected to provide financial and/or in-kind contribution, in line with the level of ambition of the proposed measures. The partnership should be open to including new partners over the lifetime of the partnership. Its governance should create a clear and transparent process for engaging with a broad range of stakeholders, together with the full members of the partnership, to ensure that the work strategically covers a wide range of views in the field of biodiversity, nature-based solutions and ecosystem services throughout the lifetime of the partnership. To ensure that all work streams are coherent and complementary, and to leverage knowledge investment potential, the partnership is expected to foster close cooperation and synergies with the projects funded under Cluster 4 Digital, Industry and Space. It should also develop synergies with other relevant European initiatives, funding programmes and platforms such as EIT Raw Materials.
• Financial support provided by the participants to third parties is one of the primary channels under this action to enable the partnership to achieve its objectives. The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 2 million. It is expected that the partnership organises joint calls on an annual base from 2026 to 2032 and therefore it should factor ample time to run the co-funded projects.
• The total indicative budget for the partnership is EUR 300 million. The EU contribution will be limited to 30% of the total eligible costs of the action with a maximum of EUR 90 million.

The starting date of grants awarded under this topic may be as of the submission date of the application. Applicants should justify the need for a retroactive starting date in their application. Costs incurred from the starting date of the action may be considered eligible.

[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, ELI:http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1252/oj).

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

[3] COM(2023) 165 - A secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials in support of the twin transition

[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] 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).

[6] African Union member states includes countries whose membership has been temporarily suspended

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

[8] https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/negotiations-and-agreements_en

[9] 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).

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

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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.

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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.

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