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.

Digitally enabled local-for-local textile and apparel production (Textiles for the Future Partnership) (IA)

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-CL4-INDUSTRY-2025-01-MATERIALS-31

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 Lump Sum Grant [HORIZON-AG-LS]

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:

• Demonstrate economic viability of local on-demand production of fashion and other complex textile products, including for professional or public end markets, through integration of advanced digital technologies across the full product life cycle from creation, production, distribution, use and end-of-life;
• Accelerate adoption of advanced digital product creation and manufacturing technologies by European textile and fashion SMEs; and
• Increase share of re- or near-shored production of time-critical textile products, made in socially and environmentally responsible ways, including recycled materials; and in this way contribute to the mitigation of GHG emissions.

Scope:

Up to 80% of textile and apparel products consumed in Europe are partially or fully made outside Europe, exploiting lower labour cost as well as laxer local standards and regulations with regards to environmental, human health and labour rights protection. This offshoring of production has slowed textile manufacturing technology innovation in Europe and led to a complex long-lead time supply chain, generating unnecessary production and pre-consumer waste from unused mass-produced materials and unsold products not meeting actual demand.

Digitalisation in product development, production and on-demand supply chains has the potential to significantly reduce such overproduction, and enable business models that can competitively offer rapid short run or single piece production as well as related repair or end-of-life dismantling services for effective local recycling.

These aspects are particularly important in view of the new requirements to be set under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation under which textiles are flagged as one of the priority product groups for the elaboration of a sustainable policy framework that could consider durability, recyclability, repairability and recycled content the most important product aspects

Proposals should address at least one of the two following activities:

1. Small scale demonstration, experimentation or piloting of approaches, processes or technologies for:

• Complex manufacturing operations including yarn or fabric production and final product assembly that go beyond state-of-the-art processes such as digital garment printing;
• Seamless interoperable data flows and transparency towards the end user that pursue and harness waste minimisation, short time to market and trust-building between supply chain partners and end users;
• Valorisation of locally available renewable raw materials (biobased or recycled) and regional production capacities that allow for shortest time to market and lowest environmental footprint;
• Micro-factories that can flexibly combine small-scale local production, repair, and re- and de-manufacturing operations.

2. Uptake of innovative service-driven business models that maximise consumer value creation and lowers total cost of ownership from high-quality long-lasting products.

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

Proposals should include financial support to third party (FSTP) to maximise the number of SMEs involved in small-scale innovation projects. All such innovation projects should include at least one advanced technology provider; one manufacturing SME; and one end-market facing company, such as a retailer or a professional or consumer service provider. The partners should be from at least two different countries. FSTP funding can be provided only to SME participants, while the active participation of larger companies in such innovation projects is encouraged. The involvement of start-ups is also specifically encouraged. To ensure a focused effort, each third-party beneficiary should receive funding up to EUR 60 000, in projects with an indicative duration of 18 months.

International cooperation may be considered, in particular with countries that are advanced in the field.

Where relevant, projects should build on or seek collaboration with existing projects and develop synergies with other relevant European, national or regional initiatives and funding programmes.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership ‘Textiles for the Future’.

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.