The 200 billion euro question: what the FP10 budget fight means for 2028 planning

14 September 2026 · Strategic Funding Partners

Published 14 September 2026 · SFP Pulse · Weekly Research

> The Commission proposes a European Innovation Act, the ERC hands €705 million to 421 early-career researchers, and seven research and university organisations call for at least €200 billion for Horizon Europe's next phase: a week of confirmed funding news set against a budget argument that is far from settled.

Two numbers define this week. €175 billion is what the Commission has proposed for Horizon Europe from 2028. €200 billion is what seven of Europe's largest research and university networks said on 9 September it will actually take. That €25 billion gap is the biggest single unknown in anyone's 2028 planning. Everything else that happened this week sits between them: a new European Innovation Act, €705 million landing with 421 early-career researchers, two partnership calls worth around €74 million that will never appear on the Funding and Tenders Portal, and a supercomputer switching on in Sweden.

The confirmed news comes first below. Talk of the week then takes the budget fight in full: what the seven organisations actually argued, why they want scale-up funding kept separate, and what it means for collaborative research after 2027.

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Procurement, patents and sandboxes: inside the new European Innovation Act

Do not go looking for a new funding pot in the European Innovation Act, adopted on 9 September 2026 as COM(2026) 567 final. There isn’t one. What it offers instead is arguably more useful: rules for public procurement of research and development, a common EU framework for valuing intellectual property so universities and companies can borrow against their patents, and shared principles for regulatory sandboxes that let companies test innovations under supervised, temporary rules.

In other words, it changes the routes to money and to market rather than the amount of money on the table. If you are a public buyer who struggles to procure R&D outcomes, a university sitting on a patent portfolio you cannot easily monetise, or a scaleup chasing IP-backed finance, this is the week's most consequential document.

> 📋 Three pillars, one proposal: public procurement rules for R&D, a common EU approach to valuing intellectual property, and shared principles for regulatory sandboxes.

None of this is law yet. The proposal now enters the normal EU legislative process, so nothing in it applies today. But organisations that procure research, hold patents they would like to use as collateral, or want to test a regulated product in a sandbox have every reason to read the text now and start mapping where it would change their options, well before it takes effect.

Source: Commission proposes new European Innovation Act · European Innovation Act policy page

€34 million for water research, and it will never reach the Portal

The Water4All 2026 joint transnational call on sustainable water management is now open, following June's pre-announcement. Ninety partners across 33 countries are behind it, pre-proposals are due by 10 November 2026 at 15:00 CET, and an international information webinar runs on 17 September 2026 from 14:00 to 16:00 CEST if you are still deciding whether to go for it.

Here is the catch that catches applicants every year: calls like this never appear on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal. They run through national funders under a European partnership umbrella rather than through the Commission directly, so anyone watching only the Portal misses them completely. The partnership's own site puts the budget at approximately €34 million under Pillar B, Research and Innovation Development, running from September 2026 to the end of 2031.

Source: Water4All 2026 Joint Transnational Call · Call announcement

BiodivFuture opens with around €40 million for novel ecosystems

Biodiversa+ launched its new joint research call, BiodivFuture, on 9 September 2026, backed by a total budget of around €40 million. The call targets the causes, effects and consequences of novel ecosystems in environments worldwide, and is looking for research with holistic, systemic and integrated approaches. The pre-proposal deadline is still only given as "early November" on the official pages, so treat that date as provisional until the partnership firms it up.

Like Water4All, it is a partnership call rather than a Portal call, which means ecology, land management and marine science groups will only see it if they are watching Biodiversa+ directly.

Source: Biodiversa+ launches BiodivFuture · BiodivFuture call page

Sweden's new supercomputer is live, and the compute is free to use

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and NAISS inaugurated Arrhenius, a mid-range EuroHPC supercomputer hosted by Linköping University, on 8 September 2026. The system is estimated to be worth €68.5 million, co-funded up to 35% by EuroHPC through the Digital Europe Programme, with the rest from the Swedish Research Council. It has been in production since late May.

That last part is what makes this more than a ribbon-cutting: access to EuroHPC systems is free at the point of use for European research and industry users through the JU's access calls. This is capacity you can apply for today.

Source: EuroHPC JU inaugurates Arrhenius

Digital Connectivity Awards: deadline extended to 30 September

The Commission announced on 9 September 2026 that applications for the European Digital Connectivity Awards 2026 can now be submitted until 30 September 2026, end of day, extended from the original 9 September date. Projects of all sizes are eligible, including rural, urban, public, private and cross-border connectivity projects.

There is no money attached, so treat this as recognition rather than funding. What there is instead is three extra weeks and very little effort required, for anyone who watched the first deadline go past.

Source: Deadline extended to 30 September · European Digital Connectivity Awards

Information

Commission sets a new research and innovation direction for agri-food and rural areas

The Commission adopted a Communication on 8 September 2026 setting a long-term research and innovation direction for agriculture, forestry, rural areas and food systems. It introduces two frameworks, AgRI 2040 and Food 2040, backed by a staff working document, and an AgRI 2040 conference is planned to build out the priorities with farmers, researchers and rural actors.

If you plan to position anything for 2027 Cluster 6 or agri-food calls, read this now. It is the document those priorities will be written from.

Source: Commission launches agri-food innovation strategy · AgRI 2040 strategic approach

Reminder: EIT Regulation call for evidence closes 23 September

The call for evidence supporting a revision of the EIT Regulation and the EIT Strategic Innovation Agenda for 2028 to 2034 opened on 12 August 2026 and closes on 23 September 2026. The new Regulation is expected to be adopted in December 2026.

EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities are a serious funding and partnership route for universities and industry, and this is the only open window to shape what they look like after 2027. If you have a view, you have just over a week to get it on the record.

Source: Call for evidence on the future EIT Regulation

Selected and funded

ERC Starting Grants 2026: €705 million to 421 early-career researchers

The ERC announced the results of its 2026 Starting Grant competition on 3 September 2026. A total of €705 million goes to 421 early-career researchers, chosen from 4,807 proposals, an 8.8% success rate. The new grantees will be hosted across 25 EU member states and associated countries.

That 8.8% is the figure worth sitting with. The competition is closed, so there is nothing to apply for here, but host institutions benchmark themselves against these results, and anyone preparing a Starting Grant bid now knows what the odds look like.

Source: ERC Starting Grants: 705 million euro results · UKRO coverage

EIC selects first 20 Advanced Innovation Challenges projects

The EIC announced on 10 September 2026 that 20 projects have been selected to enter the first stage of its new Advanced Innovation Challenges pilot, which runs alongside the existing Pathfinder, Transition and Accelerator schemes.

This is the first look at how the challenge-based pilot actually behaves, which matters if you are deciding whether to aim at it next round. Funding figures and topic splits doing the rounds elsewhere this week are not confirmed on the EIC's own pages, so we have left them out.

Source: EIC launches first Advanced Innovation Challenges projects · Advanced Innovation Challenges pilot

21,627 applications: the MSCA field just got more crowded

Two major schemes closed their books this fortnight, and both point the same way: the field is getting more crowded. The 2026 MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships call closed on 9 September 2026 with 21,627 applications, a record for the scheme; the MSCA Doctoral Networks 2026 call closed the same day. Separately, the ERC published preliminary figures for the first ERC Plus Grant competition, which closed on 2 September: 198 proposals were received.

If you advise applicants heading into the next MSCA or ERC Plus round, these are the numbers to reach for when the conversation turns to how much preparation a credible bid genuinely needs.

Source: MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026 receives record number of applications · UKRO coverage · ERC Plus Grants: facts and figures

Talk of the week

The loudest conversation this fortnight had nothing to do with an open call. It was about money: how big the research budget should be between 2028 and 2034, and whether Horizon Europe's share of it will be enough to matter.

On 9 September 2026, seven research and university networks, CESAER, the Coimbra Group, EUA, EU-LIFE, The Guild, LERU and YERUN, published a joint statement calling on member states and the Parliament to secure at least €200 billion for Horizon Europe in the next long-term budget. Their case: the Commission's proposed €175 billion shrinks in real terms once inflation and rising research costs are counted, and the framework programme should stay focused on research and early-stage innovation, leaving scale-up investment to the proposed European Competitiveness Fund. The same group has separately set out its own vision for how that FP10-to-ECF boundary should work in practice.

This is advocacy, not a decision, and no figure is agreed. A lower number that has resurfaced elsewhere is a Council presidency position from before the summer, not a live counter-offer. What's genuinely new is the coordination: seven organisations that don't always agree have landed on the same number and the same argument, in the same week the Commission put its own institutional reform proposal, the Innovation Act, on the table. Read together, the two stories are one conversation about what the EU wants research funding to do next, and who pays for scaling up what research produces.

The mood across the sector mirrors that split: anxious but organised on the budget, genuinely pleased about the ERC and MSCA numbers, and briskly practical about finding partners for the new partnership calls. None of it changes what is confirmed this week. All of it shapes what the next few years look like.

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