Horizon Europe Structure: The Three Pillars and Six Clusters Explained

Horizon Europe is organised into three pillars, one cross-cutting part, and six thematic clusters that sit inside Pillar 2. Pillar 1 funds excellent science, Pillar 2 funds collaborative research on global challenges and industrial competitiveness, and Pillar 3 funds market-creating innovation. Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area runs alongside all three.

That is the map. It matters commercially because the pillar you apply under sets your consortium requirements, your funding rate, your expected technology readiness level and, above all, your odds. In the 2026 Health call, estimated success rates ran from 3.4 percent to 20 percent depending on the topic. Where you apply matters as much as what you propose.

Horizon Europe key facts

What is Horizon Europe?

Horizon Europe is the European Union's framework programme for research and innovation for 2021 to 2027, with an indicative budget of EUR 93.5 billion following the Multiannual Financial Framework Midterm Review. It is the ninth framework programme (FP9), successor to Horizon 2020, and the largest multinational research and innovation programme in the world.

It is managed by DG Research and Innovation and delivered through executive agencies including HaDEA, REA and CINEA. Almost all funding is awarded through competitive calls published in biennial work programmes on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal. German readers will know it as Horizont Europa, with pillars called Säulen and consortium projects Verbundprojekte.

On the budget figure. You will see both EUR 95.5 billion and EUR 93.5 billion quoted, often on the same page. EUR 95.5 billion was agreed in December 2020 in current prices, including EUR 5.4 billion from NextGenerationEU. EUR 93.5 billion is what the Commission publishes after the Midterm Review. Cluster budgets in the Horizon Europe Regulation were set against the original envelope, so read them as proportions, not final allocations.

The architecture at a glance

Horizon Europe runs on a six-level hierarchy. Understanding it is the most useful thing a first-time applicant can do:

Pillar → Cluster → Destination → Call → Topic → Type of Action

A pillar is one of three structural divisions. A cluster is a thematic area, and clusters exist only inside Pillar 2. A destination sets out the expected impacts a group of topics must deliver. A call is a set of topics sharing a deadline. A topic is the opportunity you apply to. The type of action sets your funding rate and expected maturity.

Applicants read topics and ignore destinations. That is backwards: the destination text tells you what evaluators have been asked to reward, and your impact section is written against it.

Pillar 1: Excellent Science

Pillar 1 of Horizon Europe funds bottom-up, excellence-driven research with no thematic constraint, through the European Research Council, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and Research Infrastructures. It is the only part of the programme where a single beneficiary can win a large grant on scientific merit alone.

European Research Council (ERC)

The ERC has an indicative budget of around EUR 16 billion for individual principal investigators and small teams pursuing frontier research. Grants are awarded on scientific excellence alone: no thematic priorities, no consortium requirement. The schemes are Starting Grants (2 to 7 years after PhD), Consolidator Grants (7 to 12 years), Advanced Grants, and Synergy Grants.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

MSCA has around EUR 6.6 billion for researcher mobility and training: postdoctoral fellowships, doctoral networks and staff exchanges. This is the underused entry point for companies. A German SME can host an MSCA fellow or join a doctoral network as a non-academic partner, building an EU track record at a fraction of the effort of coordinating a Pillar 2 consortium.

Research Infrastructures

Around EUR 2.4 billion for developing and providing access to pan-European research facilities. For industrial applicants this is a route to facility access rather than a funding target.

Pillar 2: Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness

Pillar 2 is the largest part of Horizon Europe, with an indicative budget of EUR 53.5 billion, around 56 percent of the programme. It funds top-down, consortium-based collaborative projects across six thematic clusters, plus the non-nuclear direct actions of the Joint Research Centre (around EUR 1.97 billion).

This is where most German industrial participants belong. Projects typically run 3 to 5 years with 8 to 20 partners and EU contributions of EUR 2 million to EUR 15 million across the consortium.

The six clusters explained

Horizon Europe has six clusters, all inside Pillar 2. Each groups research around a broad societal or industrial challenge and breaks down into destinations, then calls, then topics.

Budget note: cluster totals below are the indicative 2021-2027 allocations in the Horizon Europe Regulation annex, calculated against the original EUR 95.5 billion envelope. Actual allocations run slightly below these figures after the Midterm Review, and national contact point materials sometimes differ by EUR 50 to 100 million. Where sources disagree we use the Regulation figure.

Cluster 1: Health

• Budget 2021-2027: EUR 8.246 billion
• What it funds: Disease prevention, diagnostics, treatment, digital health and resilient health systems, with emphasis on personalised medicine, infectious disease preparedness and health data.
• Typical applicants: University hospitals, clinical research organisations, medtech and diagnostics companies, pharma SMEs.
• Fit for German industry: Strong for medtech and diagnostics, hard to access without a clinical partner.
• Reality check: The 2026 Health call closed on 16 April 2026 with 1,003 proposals. Estimated success rates for Research and Innovation Actions ran from 3.4 percent on the most oversubscribed topics to 20 percent on regulatory science.

Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society

• Budget 2021-2027: EUR 2.28 billion
• What it funds: Democracy and governance, social and economic inclusion, cultural heritage, creative industries.
• Typical applicants: Social science and humanities faculties, cultural institutions, policy think tanks.
• Fit for German industry: Rarely a fit for technical SMEs. The smallest and most academically dominated cluster.

Cluster 3: Civil Security for Society

• Budget 2021-2027: EUR 1.60 billion
• What it funds: Disaster resilience, critical infrastructure protection, cybersecurity, border management, and the fight against crime and terrorism.
• Typical applicants: Security technology firms, first responder organisations, public authorities, research institutes.
• Fit for German industry: Viable for sensor, detection and cybersecurity firms, but consortia are expected to include practitioner end users such as police forces, fire services or border agencies. First-time applicants underestimate this and lose points on impact.

Cluster 4: Digital, Industry and Space

• Budget 2021-2027: EUR 15.349 billion
• 2026-2027 Work Programme: Approximately EUR 1.5 billion
• What it funds: Artificial intelligence, data, robotics, advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, semiconductors, quantum, next-generation internet, raw materials and space systems.
• Typical applicants: Industrial companies of all sizes, Fraunhofer and Helmholtz institutes, technical universities, deep-tech SMEs.
• Fit for German industry: The highest-traffic cluster for German applicants and the natural home for machine builders, automation specialists, materials developers and industrial software firms.

Cluster 4 is the largest thematic cluster in Horizon Europe Pillar 2, with a 2021-2027 budget of EUR 15.349 billion for collaborative projects across digital, industrial and space technologies.

Cluster 5: Climate, Energy and Mobility

• Budget 2021-2027: EUR 15.12 billion, including a EUR 1.35 billion NextGenerationEU top-up
• What it funds: Climate science and adaptation, energy systems and grids, renewables, batteries and storage, hydrogen, and clean mobility across road, rail, aviation and waterborne transport.
• Typical applicants: Energy utilities, automotive and rail suppliers, aerospace firms, engineering consultancies, applied research institutes.
• Fit for German industry: Second only to Cluster 4, and the strongest cluster for automotive, energy technology and mobility suppliers.
• A figure to read carefully: the EUR 1.644 billion often quoted for Cluster 5 in 2026-2027 is estimated climate-related expenditure, a climate-tracking figure, not the cluster's total allocation. We have seen it misquoted as the cluster budget in several published guides.

Cluster 6: Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

• Budget 2021-2027: EUR 8.95 billion
• What it funds: Sustainable agriculture and food systems, circular bioeconomy, biodiversity, forestry, water, soil and the zero-pollution agenda.
• Typical applicants: Agri-food companies, biotechnology SMEs, agricultural research institutes, regional authorities.
• Fit for German industry: Good for bioeconomy, food processing technology and agricultural machinery. Projects have a strong demonstration and regional pilot character, so expect to commit to field sites.

Pillar 3: Innovative Europe

Pillar 3 of Horizon Europe funds market-creating innovation through the European Innovation Council, European Innovation Ecosystems and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. Unlike Pillar 2 it supports single companies rather than large consortia, and it is the only part of Horizon Europe providing equity as well as grants.

European Innovation Council (EIC)

The EIC has over EUR 10 billion and runs a three-step ladder: EIC Pathfinder for early-stage, high-risk technology exploration, EIC Transition for maturing results from Pathfinder or ERC projects, and EIC Accelerator for single startups and SMEs going to market, with grants up to EUR 2.5 million plus EIC Fund equity of EUR 0.5 million to EUR 10 million. Higher equity is available under the STEP Scale-up scheme.

The Accelerator numbers are the most misread in EU funding. In the round announced on 17 February 2026, 923 companies submitted full applications requesting nearly EUR 7 billion. Of those, 121 reached interview and 61 were selected, with EUR 467 million proposed and 85 percent taking blended finance. That is roughly 6.6 percent at full application stage but around 50 percent once you reach interview. The bottleneck is not the jury. It is getting to the jury.

Germany was the most represented country in that cohort, alongside Spain, France and Sweden. In the following round on 15 June 2026, 38 companies from 16 countries were selected, with Germany again among the top represented.

European Innovation Ecosystems (EIE) and the EIT

EIE connects regional and national innovation actors and supports innovation procurement, which matters more to clusters and development agencies than to individual companies. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology runs Knowledge and Innovation Communities in manufacturing, urban mobility, health, climate and raw materials. KICs publish their own calls and business creation programmes outside the standard Funding and Tenders Portal workflow, which is why they are so often missed.

Widening Participation and Strengthening the ERA

This is the cross-cutting part of Horizon Europe, often called the fourth part, funding measures to close the research and innovation gap between member states. It receives around 3.3 percent of the budget. It is not a pillar today, which matters, because that changes in the proposed successor.

Widening countries comprise 15 EU member states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia), 14 associated countries with comparable R&I performance, and the EU outermost regions.

The instruments are Teaming, Twinning, ERA Chairs and the Hop On Facility, which lets an entity from a widening country join an already-selected Pillar 2 or EIC Pathfinder project with the consortium's agreement. For a German applicant, a well-chosen widening partner strengthens geographical balance at modest cost, and Hop On lets you add capability after signature.

EU Missions

EU Missions are five goal-oriented, time-bound initiatives with 2030 targets. They sit within Pillar 2 but cut across the clusters, drawing on multiple instruments and coordinating national and regional funding alongside Horizon Europe money.

Together the missions account for more than EUR 440 million in 2026 calls, before joint calls between missions such as the Soil and Climate Adaptation topic on soil resilience to extreme weather. A mission is not a cluster: if you work on urban decarbonisation you could apply through Cluster 5, the Cities Mission, or a partnership. Three competitions, three different success rates.

European Partnerships

Around 60 European Partnerships channel a substantial share of Pillar 2 funding through co-programmed, co-funded and institutionalised structures such as Joint Undertakings. They publish their own calls on their own timelines, sometimes with their own portals and membership requirements.

This is a genuine blind spot. An applicant searching only the main cluster work programmes will never see the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, 2Zero, Made in Europe or Processes4Planet calls, several of which carry heavy German industrial participation and, in some cases, materially better odds than the equivalent open cluster topic.

Types of action, funding rates and TRL

The type of action attached to a topic sets your reimbursement rate, your consortium obligations and the technology readiness level evaluators expect.

Indirect costs are reimbursed at a flat 25 percent of direct eligible costs. Two consequences get missed. In an Innovation Action a German company carries 30 percent of its own project costs: a real cash commitment needing board sign-off, not an accounting note. And applying to an IA topic at TRL 4 is among the most common and most avoidable causes of a weak impact score.

Which cluster does my project belong in?

Decide from the destination text, not the cluster title. The table below is a starting filter, not an answer.

The recurring trap is the technology-first reflex. A hydrogen electrolyser is a Cluster 5 project if the innovation sits in the energy system, a Cluster 4 project if it sits in the membrane materials or manufacturing process, and a Clean Hydrogen Partnership project if it is close to deployment. The technology has not changed. The competition, the evaluators and your odds have.

What is new in the 2026-2027 Work Programme

The European Commission adopted the main Horizon Europe Work Programme for 2026-2027 on 11 December 2025, with a budget of EUR 14 billion. It is the final major work programme of the current cycle and the biggest procedural change since launch.

Simplification. The work programme is 33 percent shorter than the 2023-2024 edition with 35 percent fewer topics, concentrating resources on fewer but larger topics. Topics funding only one project have halved.

Lump sums at scale. Fifty percent of the call budget will run on lump-sum grants, focused on topics expected to produce grants below EUR 10 million. A lump sum fixes the amount at signature against an approved work plan: no timesheets, no transaction-level cost reporting, no audit of individual costs. The trade-off is real. You carry any overrun, payment is tied to completed work packages, and moving budget between work packages needs a formal amendment. Work plan realism replaces cost accounting as the discipline that matters.

Evaluation. Forty-one topics use two-stage evaluation, with a short proposal first and a full proposal only on invitation. Anonymised evaluation applies on selected topics.

Horizontal calls. For the first time, calls cut across cluster boundaries: a EUR 540 million package for the Clean Industrial Deal and decarbonisation of energy-intensive industries, and an AI in Science call of around EUR 90 million, with at least EUR 775 million for AI in science across the work programme overall. Choose Europe for Science is expanded, including around EUR 50 million under MSCA. At least 35 percent of the budget, roughly EUR 4.9 billion, goes to climate objectives.

Who can participate in Horizon Europe?

Legal entities from the EU-27 and from associated countries participate on equal terms, including the right to coordinate consortia. Entities from other third countries can take part but are generally not funded unless the topic text says otherwise.

As of March 2026, 22 non-EU countries are associated with Horizon Europe: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Egypt, the Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Korea, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Türkiye, Tunisia, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

Association is not uniform. Canada and Korea are associated to Pillar 2 only. The United Kingdom is associated with the exception of the EIC Fund equity component. Switzerland is associated for award procedures from budget year 2025 onwards. Negotiations concluded with Japan, and with Australia on 9 June 2026, with Australia associating to Pillar 2 from 2027. Exploratory talks with India have also concluded. Because this list moves, check the Commission's versioned list of participating countries before finalising a consortium.

What replaces Horizon Europe after 2027?

Horizon Europe does not end. On 16 July 2025 the European Commission proposed that the successor for 2028 to 2034 keep the Horizon Europe name, remain a standalone programme, and receive EUR 175 billion, nearly double the current budget. This is a proposal under negotiation between the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council. It is not adopted law, and the figures will move.

The proposal shifts from three pillars plus a cross-cutting part to four pillars, converting Widening and ERA into a vertical pillar.

The programme would sit alongside the European Competitiveness Fund, a EUR 234 billion instrument, bringing the combined envelope to around EUR 409 billion. Two points deserve attention: the EIT does not appear in the proposal, and the five Missions are set to receive funding only until 2030.

For applicants this means continuity plus three changes: lump sums become the default form of Union funding, grant agreements are to be signed within seven months of submission with results by month five, and terminology and proposal logic stay familiar. A Horizon Europe project you complete successfully in 2026 or 2027 is direct evidence of implementation capacity for the next cycle, because evaluators use prior EU project history as a proxy for delivery risk.

What Germany's position means for your consortium strategy

Germany is the largest beneficiary of Horizon Europe. German institutions received 16.3 percent of all funds awarded in the first three years, nearly EUR 5 billion, ahead of France with 11.4 percent and EUR 3.4 billion. Bavaria alone accounts for just under EUR 1.2 billion, around 24 percent of the German total, with the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft the leading Bavarian recipient at EUR 277 million and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft at EUR 195 million.

Three consequences follow. A German partner is not a differentiator, because nearly every competitive consortium already has one. What differentiates a proposal is a credible exploitation route and a partner mix evaluators have not seen twenty times. Geographical balance is a real scoring factor, which is why a strong widening-country partner is worth more than a second German institute. And the national support layer is free and underused: DLR Projektträger operates most of Germany's National Contact Points, and KoWi supports the university and research organisation sector. Their advice costs nothing and should come before anything paid.

Where to go from here

The structure is a filter. Applicants who succeed decide where they fit before they start writing, because a strong proposal in the wrong competition still loses to an average proposal in the right one.

Scoping a first application? Do three things in order: read the destination text above the topic that caught your eye, check whether a European Partnership covers the same ground, and confirm your TRL matches the type of action. If you would rather not do that alone, our Horizon Europe proposal support team will read your project abstract and tell you which calls to look at, free of charge.

Sources

• European Commission, Horizon Europe programme page (budget, structure, association status)
• Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027, General Introduction, adopted 11 December 2025
• Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027, Part 12: Missions
• European Commission, EU Missions in Horizon Europe
• European Commission, Widening Participation and Spreading Excellence
• European Research Executive Agency, Horizon Europe Widening: who should apply
• EU Grants: List of participating countries (Horizon Europe and Euratom), versioned PDF
• European Commission, EU and Australia formally open negotiations on association, 31 March 2026
• European Commission, EU and Australia successfully conclude Horizon Europe negotiations, 9 June 2026
• European Innovation Council, 61 start-ups and SMEs secure EIC support, 17 February 2026
• European Innovation Council, 38 start-ups and SMEs secure EIC support, 15 June 2026
• European Commission, Horizon Europe Framework Programme 2028-2034 proposal, 16 July 2025
• European Commission, European Competitiveness Fund
• BayFOR, Three years of Horizon Europe in figures (German participation data)
• European Commission, Country Participation in the EU R&I Framework Programmes

Changelog

• July 2026: Updated association status after conclusion of Australia negotiations (9 June 2026); added June 2026 EIC Accelerator round; updated overall success rate to 14 percent.