Up to €78 million across two partnership calls, and national rules decide who can apply

21 September 2026 · Strategic Funding Partners

Published 21 September 2026 · SFP Pulse · Weekly Research

> Two European Partnership calls opened with up to €78 million between them, both off-portal and governed by national funding rules. Plus the EU Missions verdict.

Up to €78 million opened for applications in the past week, across two European Partnership calls. The Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership launched its fourth joint transnational call with approximately €38 million on 14 September, and the FOREST Partnership followed on 15 September with an indicative commitment of up to €40 million. The twist is that in both cases your national funder, not the call text, decides whether you can be funded.

Two more stories deserve your attention up front: an application window that buys you access to future CEF Energy money, and the Innovation Fund's decision to hold back its hydrogen auction rules until the day the call opens. Further down, the Commission's mid-term verdict on the five EU Missions, the week's largest funding decisions, and the delayed Parliament vote on the next Horizon Europe. Threaded through it all: who you build with, and whether the work survives the step from project to market.

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Up to €78 million in partnership funding, and your national funder decides your eligibility

Two European Partnership calls opened within 24 hours of each other last week. The Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership launched its fourth joint transnational call on 14 September 2026, "Building a sustainable and innovative Blue Economy: mastering digital opportunities and fostering resilience", with approximately €38 million available. It runs in two stages: pre-proposals by 16 November 2026 at 15:00 CET, full proposals by 14 June 2027, with projects running 36 months. Submission is through the European EPSS.

The FOREST Partnership opened its first joint call, FORESTPathways, on 15 September 2026: "Building Knowledge and Solutions for Resilient Forests and Sustainable Forest-Based Futures". The indicative total public funding commitment is up to €40 million, including the EU co-contribution, brought together by 36 research funding organisations from 27 countries. It is also two-stage, with the first stage closing on 2 December 2026 at 13:00 CET, full proposals due by 2 June 2027, and successful projects expected to start in the first half of 2028.

There are four topics, and the last two are easy to miss if you assume this is a forestry-science call:

1. Climate-resilient forest systems, on how forests function and respond to climate change

2. Adaptive and multifunctional forest management systems, on how forests should be managed under changing conditions

3. Timber and innovative wood-based products, on how wood is transformed into innovative products

4. Forest value chains, markets and governance, on how forest-based sectors, markets and governance are organised

Partnership calls of this kind are pooled from national and regional funders under a European umbrella, which has two practical consequences. The first is where to look: each partnership publishes its call on its own website, so it pays to follow them directly. The second matters more. National funding rules apply per participating organisation, so what a partner can claim, and sometimes whether they can participate, has to be checked against the national annexes rather than the call text alone. A consortium that looks eligible on paper can still fail on a single partner's national conditions.

If you are in marine research, aquaculture, maritime industry, forestry, land management, wood processing, materials, bioeconomy or forest sector policy and markets, these are the two most actionable items this week. Both need a transnational consortium assembled before a November or December first-stage deadline, which is a short runway for partner search.

FORESTPathways has two events built in for exactly that problem: a partnering workshop in Brussels on 30 September 2026 and a networking webinar on 6 October 2026. There is also a partnering tool on the submission system for posting and searching partner profiles.

If you have the science but not yet the partners, Proposal Builder Plus covers consortium building alongside senior proposal support, and we welcome enquiries from organisations wherever they are based, subject to each call's own participation rules.

Source: SBEP fourth joint transnational call · FORESTPathways joint call 2026 · National detail, Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Miss this application window and you close off CEF Energy funding entirely

Applications opened on 14 September 2026 for candidate Projects of Common Interest and Projects of Mutual Interest in the electricity, smart electricity grids and smart gas grids categories, and for projects under Article 24 of the TEN-E Regulation. The deadlines are 13 November 2026 at midnight for electricity, and 4 December 2026 at midnight for the other categories. Successful applications feed the third Union list.

This is an application for status, not for a grant, and that is exactly why it belongs at the top of your list rather than the bottom. PCI or PMI status is the precondition for applying to the CEF Energy funding calls that follow, so a project promoter who lets this window pass does not simply wait for the next grant round: the funding route is closed until the following Union list.

An information webinar on the process runs on 30 September 2026 from 09:30 to 12:30. If you are developing cross-border electricity, grid or gas infrastructure and have not been through this process before, that is the session to attend.

Source: Call for applications for candidate energy infrastructure projects · PCI and PMI selection process and webinar

You will not see the hydrogen auction rules before the call opens

The Innovation Fund's two December 2026 auctions behave differently on documentation, and the difference changes how you prepare.

For the IF26 Hydrogen Auction, the fourth auction under the European Hydrogen Bank, consultation on the draft terms closed on 24 August and a webinar on the feedback was held on 8 September. The auction is expected to launch by the end of 2026. The draft terms state that the final terms and conditions will be published only when the call opens, as part of the call text. Anyone planning to bid has to build their cost assumptions, permitting evidence and offtake position on the draft, because there will be no window between final rules and opening.

The second round of the IF26 Heat Auction is confirmed to open for proposals in December 2026, following the IF25 pilot in which 65 projects were invited to grant preparation. Here the final terms are due in autumn 2026, ahead of opening. The draft terms are dated 22 May 2026 and cover a €1 billion programme.

> 📋 Both open in December 2026. Hydrogen: final terms published only at opening. Heat, second round: final terms expected in autumn, ahead of opening, against a €1 billion programme.

Source: Innovation Fund competitive bidding · Hydrogen auction draft terms · Heat auction draft terms

Information

The EU Missions got their mid-term verdict, and it is the document your next Mission proposal will be judged against

On 14 September 2026 the Commission adopted its report on the mid-term assessment of the EU Missions, covering Climate Adaptation, Cancer, Restore our Ocean and Waters, Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, and Soil. The Commission's position is that the Missions are delivering measurable results, are on track towards their 2030 objectives, and that the Mission model drives systemic change rather than isolated projects.

The Missions are the part of Horizon Europe most often criticised for vague impact pathways, so a positive assessment matters beyond the press release. This is the document that will be cited when Mission budgets and call design are settled for the next framework programme, and it sets out the language the Commission itself now uses about Mission impact.

The practical use is immediate. If you are writing a Mission proposal, read the accompanying staff working document alongside the report and mirror its terms in your impact section. Assessors work within the framework the Commission has just endorsed.

Source: Commission press release · COM(2026) 467 final · SWD(2026) 275 final

The other half of the 9 September package: a Public Procurement Act proposal

On the same day it adopted the European Innovation Act, which we covered last week, the Commission also put forward a proposal for a Public Procurement Act. It is easy to miss, but for most organisations procurement is the actual route from an EU-funded project to a paying customer.

The proposal simplifies and digitises procurement, allows more negotiation, encourages market consultation, and strengthens strategic procurement including innovation, security and resilience considerations. The Innovation Act alongside it proposes a common approach to the procurement of research and development.

This is a proposal, not law. Negotiations are targeted to conclude in Q4 2027, so nothing in it applies today. If you sell into the public sector, or you are building an exploitation plan that assumes a public buyer at the end of it, the text is worth reading now while the routes are still being written.

Source: Commission press release · Public procurement policy page

Open access across Europe is uneven, and the fix is likely to arrive through call conditions

An independent expert report for the Commission, published on 15 September 2026 and drawing on all 27 member states plus eight non-EU countries, finds real progress on open access adoption alongside persistent fragmentation. It recommends strengthening coordination through National Points of Reference, building monitoring at European Research Area level, and using programme design to incentivise uptake.

That third recommendation is the one applicants should note. It points towards open science requirements being tightened through call conditions rather than through separate policy instruments, which means the obligations turn up in your grant agreement rather than in a strategy document you can skim.

Source: Open access in the European Research Area: progress remains uneven

Ten valorisation pathways, with decision trees, for your impact section

Practical guidance on valorising multidisciplinary research results was released on 1 September 2026 and republished as a Funding and Tenders Portal news item on 9 September. It sets out ten valorisation pathways with decision trees, aimed at Horizon Europe projects including those with a strong social sciences and humanities component.

It is directly useful when you are drafting impact and exploitation sections and struggling to describe a route to use that is not simply a licence or a spin-out.

Source: Portal news item

Four open consultations, and one closes this week

If you want to shape what the post-2027 funding landscape looks like, these are the windows currently open.

Selected and funded

Clean Aviation puts €290 million into 19 projects, and doubles the fast track

The Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking Governing Board approved €290 million of EU funding for 19 projects from its fourth call, announced on 17 September 2026. Counting in-kind contributions, the projects mobilise €664 million of total research effort.

Eight of the 19 sit in the Fast Track Areas, double the four funded under Call 3. Those Fast Track Area projects start at the end of 2026, subject to grant preparation completing in October, and the remainder follow in early 2027 after grant preparation in mid-December. Full-scale ground demonstrations and flight tests are planned for 2029 and 2030.

The Fast Track Areas are designed for universities, research centres and SMEs offering alternative or complementary technical solutions. If you are a smaller organisation that has assumed this Joint Undertaking is the preserve of the large airframe and engine consortia, the doubling is a useful signal about where you can realistically compete next time.

Source: Clean Aviation press release · Call 4 project list

€411 million to 73 research infrastructure projects, with a large share going to people rather than equipment

The Research Executive Agency announced €411 million for 73 new Horizon Europe research infrastructure projects on 14 September 2026, republished on the Funding and Tenders Portal on 17 September. The projects cover health research, climate resilience, agriculture, transport and manufacturing, and include support for Mission Cancer and Destination Earth.

The detail worth noting is where the money goes. A significant share of the package supports training, mobility and career development for research infrastructure staff rather than equipment, which is a reminder that the research infrastructures strand funds capability and access, not only hardware.

Source: REA announcement · Portal notice

€125.81 million for three cross-border renewable projects, and two CEF Energy dates to diarise

The Commission approved grants worth €125.81 million on 17 September 2026 for works actions on three Cross-Border Renewable Energy projects: two German-Polish district heating projects, and coordination of a cross-border onshore wind park on the Latvia-Lithuania border. Cross-Border Renewable Energy status is a precondition for accessing this funding strand, which is the same logic as the PCI and PMI route above.

Two dates follow from this for anyone in the energy infrastructure space. The current CEF Energy PCI and PMI call, worth €600 million, closes on 30 September 2026 at 17:00 CEST, which leaves final checks only. The next CEF Energy cross-border renewables call is expected in November 2026.

Source: CINEA announcement

144 proposals for €275 million: what the Clean Industrial Deal call tells you about your odds

HORIZON-CID-2026-01 closed on 15 September 2026 with 144 proposals, HaDEA confirmed the following day. Decarbonisation of energy-intensive industries drew 57 proposals against an indicative €125 million, and clean technologies for climate action drew 87 against €150 million. Results are expected in December 2026.

It is worth doing the arithmetic plainly. At an indicative EU contribution of €15 million to €25 million per project, €275 million supports roughly 11 to 18 grants from 144 proposals. Those per-project figures are indicative rather than confirmed, so treat the range as a planning aid, not a published success rate.

The Clean Industrial Deal call is one of the horizontal activities in the 2026-2027 work programme and carries an indicative €540 million across the two years, so a second round is expected in 2027. If you submitted this time, the useful work between now and December is strengthening the consortium and the industrial commitment rather than waiting.

Source: HaDEA call closure notice

Three launcher propulsion projects selected from thirteen, sharing €20 million

HaDEA selected three proposals under PPPA-2026-LAUNCHERS-GAMECHANGING on 16 September 2026, from 13 submissions. They cover staged combustion, aerospike and autophage propulsion. The call budget was €20 million and was designed from the outset to fund three projects.

The condition attached is the interesting part: the selected technologies must reach qualification or first use in a launcher by 2035 at the latest. That is a demanding maturity requirement for propulsion concepts at this stage, and a signal of how the Commission is framing European launch autonomy.

Source: HaDEA selection announcement

Talk of the week

Now for the Brussels grapevine. None of this is agreed and some of it may never happen, but it is what the EU funding world is currently arguing about, and one or two of these arguments will decide what you can apply for in 2028.

The Parliament's timetable for the next Horizon Europe has slipped again, and this time the hold-up is not even about research. Science|Business reported on 10 September that the ITRE committee vote had been postponed after a deadlock in the Budgets committee over the Performance Framework Regulation, the horizontal spending rules attached to the July 2025 MFF proposal. That alone pushed the plenary vote from 5 October to mid-November. A week later came a second sticking point, closer to home: Christian Ehler's proposed councils of experts, which would advise on Pillar 2 priorities and call design, have proved divisive, 1,467 amendments have been tabled to his draft report, and the committee vote is now aimed at 10 November. Aimed at, not booked. The European Parliament committee votes page shows no ITRE vote on the Ehler or Repasi reports, and the legislative train has not picked up the new date either. The clock is the real story here. The timetable has moved twice, and the Commissioner has said a deal is needed by the end of 2026 if the programme is to start on 1 January 2028.

Into that silence stepped the EIC Board, with its statement on the 2028-2034 negotiations on 15 September. It gives the Council's Partial General Approach a cautious welcome, then asks a good deal of it: clarity on how the novel elements would work in practice, the EIC Fund's distinct character preserved, a significantly increased EIC budget, and more agile support for high-risk deep tech. The Board says it awaits the Parliament's position, which is, of course, the position currently stuck in committee. If you are weighing an EIC route for 2028, the design of the equity instrument is still genuinely up for grabs.

A nearer date is doing the rounds as well. The amended Horizon Europe 2026-2027 work programmes are reported for 5 October, with HORIZON-CL4-2027-06 rescheduled to open on 13 October. One secondary source says so, and no more. The Commission work programmes page still shows only the 11 December 2025 versions. If your 2027 planning rests on the amended text, watch that page rather than the aggregators. The EIC Work Programme 2027 sits in similar limbo: still a draft, explicitly not adopted or endorsed, with the adopted 2026 programme carrying its own caveat that it depends on the 2027 adoption.

The week's set piece was the State of the Union address on 16 September, where the Commission President reached for ICEYE, a Horizon-funded company, as her flagship innovation example, restated the Scaleup Europe Fund and promised new ways to combine public and private money for European start-ups. Warm words, no new research and innovation programme, and nothing new you can apply for.

Two threads run through all of this. The first is the gap between what the EU funds at research stage and what reaches a paying customer, which the Public Procurement Act proposal and the Innovation Act are both trying to narrow. The second is partners. The partnership calls at the top of this edition will be won or lost on who is in the consortium, not on the science alone.

What to watch

Running alongside these, the Commission's autumn 2026 webinar series on preparing and implementing Horizon Europe projects continues from September to November, online and with no registration required, covering grant agreement preparation, grant management, common financial errors, lump sum funding and innovation procurement.

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