Topic updates

15 January 2026
As call HORIZON-CL5-2026-01 is from Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025, the relevant General Annexes apply:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2025/wp-14-general-annexes_horizon-2025_en.pdf

Applicants are advised to use the dedicated versions of the application form template found in the application/submission form of their proposal.

Accelerated multi-physical and virtual testing for battery aging, reliability, and safety evaluation (Batt4EU Partnership)

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-CL5-2026-01-D2-05

Type of grant: Call for proposals

General information

Programme:

Call: Cluster 5 Call 01-2026 (WP 2025) (HORIZON-CL5-2026-01)

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: 16 September 2025

Deadline dates: 20 January 2026 17:00 (Brussels time)

Topic description

Expected Outcome:

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

• Shortened development time of battery cells and battery systems by minimising the experimental testing effort, thus reducing the overall costs and the time to market;
• Increased battery reliability and safety through better understanding of ageing, and safety-relevant (deactivation, degradation, failure) mechanisms;
• Acceleration of a more reliable verification and validation of new solutions contributing to increased user acceptability (safety, performance & costs) and competitiveness of the European battery value chain;
• Standardised battery system testing & validation approaches focussing on the combination of physical and virtual test methodologies.

Scope:

This topic aims to reduce development costs and time to market of new battery systems by accelerated multi-physical and virtual testing. Current test strategies are still very time consuming and costly due to the need to understand the impact of multi-physical operational loads (electric, thermal, mechanical, etc.), potential failure modes, ageing and misuse on the safety and reliability of battery cells and modules.

To overcome these barriers, new multi-physical test strategies supplemented by virtual testing are required taking into account the most impactful parameters on ageing, reliability and safety and their dependencies.

Proposals are expected to address Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries and are encouraged to develop techniques and methodologies which are applicable to other forms of electro-mobility as well as stationary applications (including second life).

Proposals are expected to address and demonstrate all the following activities:

• Understand and describe the impact of multi-physical operational loads, failure modes, ageing and misuse on battery reliability and safety highlighting the dependencies between them in order to design the most adequate testing methods and parameters;
• Derive advanced operating profiles for testing and development of novel X-in-the-Loop (XiL) test environments for multi-physical and accelerated testing addressing electrical, thermal and mechanical loads at the same time;
• Combine physics-based with data-driven test strategies enabling reliable virtual and physical battery testing considering specific applications;
• Develop simplified test strategies reducing the number of tests and their complexity while improving battery safety and reliability. Synergies between different battery chemistries, including next generation battery designs and sizes must be exploited where possible, allowing to re-use or scale test results from cell to system level;
• Research activities are also expected to lead to advanced response strategies for damaged and aged batteries. Furthermore, a contribution to the European safety classification system is expected by developing standards for this safety classification. To this end, proposals are expected to establish contact and exploit complementarities with selected proposals under topic HORIZON-CL5-2025-04-D5-03 “Safe post-crash management of road Light Duty Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) (2ZERO Partnership)” with regards to monitoring techniques for safety risks, algorithms for defining state of health and remaining useful life.

Activities covering the following aspects are encouraged:

• Development of virtual methods for full system validation using physical sub-system results;
• Development, exploitation, and harmonisation of advanced battery cell or pack measurement and diagnostic methods for enhancing the data depth and breadth over what is currently available. Definition of performance indicators relating to battery degradation and safety, and development of methods for the validation of digital models.
• Application of AI and generative AI for the definition of the design of experimental and testing strategies to increase the outcome of experimental testing campaigns, in order to accelerate achievement of significant conclusions, and to thus reduce testing time and effort.

Whenever the expected exploitation of project results entails developing, creating, manufacturing and marketing a product or process, or in creating and providing a service, the plan for the exploitation and dissemination of results must include a strategy for such exploitation. The exploitation plans are expected to include preliminary plans for scalability, commercialisation, and deployment (feasibility study, business plan) indicating the possible funding sources to be potentially used (in particular the Innovation Fund).

Proposals are expected to also establish cooperation and complementarity with the selected proposal under the topic HORIZON-CL5-2023-D2-02-03: “Creating a digital passport to track battery materials, optimise battery performance and life, validate recycling, and promote a new business model based on data sharing (Batt4EU Partnership)” with regards to safety and ageing information as part of the battery passport.

Proposals could consider the involvement of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC)^[1] whose contribution could consist of performing experimental or desk-top research on battery performance and/or safety. For further information on the JRC’s possible contribution to the projects, please, search for additional publicly available information on the JRC’s website (EU Science Hub) on the NCP portal, or request specific information from the JRC ([email protected])

JRC shall assure that all the other applicants receive the same information on the JRC’s possible contribution to the project (e.g., via the topic-specific FAQs under the Funding and Tenders Portal).

Projects are expected to collaborate and contribute to the activities of the Coordination and Support Action defined under the topic HORIZON-CL5-2025-D2-02-06.

To strengthen the European battery ecosystem, projects are expected to use materials, products and equipment produced in EU Member States and countries associated to Horizon Europe, unless it is demonstrated that no valid option exists. The procurement strategies should be described in the proposal, especially and to the furthest extent possible the place of production of the elements.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership on Batteries (Batt4EU) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.

[1] https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/laboratories-z/battery-energy-storage-testing_en

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