Topic updates

10 February 2026
Summary of observer report:

The evaluation of the HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01 call was carried out in accordance with established Horizon Europe procedures and demonstrated a high level of transparency, fairness, and procedural integrity. The call covered 18 topics across four destinations and involved the assessment of 159 submitted proposals, of which 155 were found to be eligible and admissible.

The evaluation was implemented through a fully remote process, comprising individual expert assessments, consensus report preparation, virtual consensus meetings, and online panel meetings. All key milestones were respected, and the overall duration of the process was efficient. The observer did not identify any indications that the compact duration of the evaluation had a negative impact on the quality, robustness, or transparency of the assessments.

Throughout all phases, REA placed strong and consistent emphasis on procedural transparency, equal treatment of proposals, and the independence of expert judgement. Comprehensive briefing materials, structured evaluation support tools, and consistent moderation practices supported a coherent and well-calibrated application of the evaluation criteria across topics. Project and Programme Officers and moderators fulfilled a clearly facilitative role, ensuring structured deliberations without influencing the substance of expert discussions.

Conflicts of interest were managed in a systematic and rigorous manner, with all identified cases duly declared and handled in line with the applicable rules. Confidentiality requirements were repeatedly reinforced during evaluation activities, and no breaches of confidentiality, impartiality, or compliance with the rules were observed.

Overall, the observer concludes that the evaluation of HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01 was conducted in full conformity with the applicable rules and guidance documents, providing a sound, credible, and transparent basis for the selection and ranking of proposals in line with the objectives of the Research Infrastructures Work Programme.

18 September 2025

PROPOSAL NUMBERS

Call HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01 has closed on 18/09/2025.

159 proposals have been submitted.

The breakdown per topic is:

HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-04: 1 proposal

Evaluation results are expected to be communicated in Feb. 2026.

Support to the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-04

Type of grant: Call for proposals

General information

Programme:

Call: Research Infrastructures 2025 (HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01)

Type of action: HORIZON-CSA HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions

Type of MGA: HORIZON Lump Sum Grant [HORIZON-AG-LS]

Status: Open for submission

Deadline model: single-stage

Opening Date: 06 May 2025

Deadline dates: 18 September 2025 17:00 (Brussels time)

Topic description

Expected Outcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• enhanced efficiency, impact and visibility of ESFRI strategy and actions;
• better structured and strengthened European research infrastructure ecosystem;
• reinforced global competitiveness of the European Research Area;
• coordination and alignment of EU and national priorities for research infrastructures;
• impact assessment of ESFRI.

Scope:

The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) brings together policy makers, funding bodies, and the scientific community to identify joint investment priorities for pan-European research infrastructures as well as to foster their implementation, sustainability and impact. A comprehensive and efficient support structure is essential for the effective execution of ESFRI's tasks and activities.

In this respect, the project should provide administrative support to the ESFRI Chair and the ESFRI Executive Board, and in particular, it should support ESFRI, the ESFRI working groups and other ESFRI bodies in carrying out all of the following activities:

• development and publishing of the ESFRI Roadmap and Landscape Analysis;
• effective evaluation of new ESFRI Roadmap applications and ESFRI project monitoring after 2026, using also external expertise;
• strengthening ESFRI’s analytical capacity, including through the use of external expertise in support of ESFRI policy and the ESFRI Roadmap processes;
• effective evaluation and monitoring of research infrastructures on the ESFRI Roadmap through appropriate ICT and analytical tools, using also external expertise;
• development and implementation of the ESFRI communication and outreach strategy, including organisation of ESFRI-led conferences and outreach events;
• fostering cooperation, exchange of experiences and good practices between the research infrastructures, their managers and stakeholders, as well as the funding bodies, including managing authorities of Cohesion policy programmes and policy makers;
• ensuring cooperation of ESFRI with ERA related groups and initiatives, with the EOSC initiative as well as with any other relevant initiatives, bodies and stakeholders at European or international level, including via the ESFRI Stakeholder Forum;
• calling on third party/ies to carry out an impact assessment of ESFRI taking account of suitable indicators proposed by ESFRI.

The project should organise its workplan in a sufficiently flexible way so as to be able to adapt to changing support needs of ESFRI. A mechanism with ESFRI should be foreseen to ensure optimal adaptation to ESFRI’s needs over the course of the project.

All software developed under this destination should be open source, licensed under a CC0 public domain dedication or under an open source licence as recommended by the Free Software Foundation^[1] and the Open Source Initiative^[2].

Proposals could consider the inclusion of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) Support Services Directorate in their research infrastructure portfolio. The JRC offers its experience in assessing, setting the strategy, maintaining, operating and providing access to external researchers to its research infrastructures in various fields of science. The JRC is an ESFRI stakeholder and collaborates with several ESFRI/ERIC consortia as an associated partner. In this regard, the JRC will consider collaborating with any successful proposal.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list#SoftwareLicenses

[2] https://opensource.org/licenses

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