GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Horizon Europe is the European Union (EU) funding programme for the period 2021 – 2027, which targets the sectors of research and innovation. The programme’s budget is around € 95.5 billion, of which € 5.4 billion is from NextGenerationEU to stimulate recovery and strengthen the EU’s resilience in the future, and € 4.5 billion is additional aid.

In order to be eligible, the applicant has to be a city or a town and must comply with the following criteria:

• The candidate cities must be located in one of the EU Member States or Associated Countries to Horizon Europe.
• For the category of European Capital of Innovation, the candidate city must have a minimum population of 250000 inhabitants. In countries where there are no such cities, the city coming closest to 250000 inhabitants is eligible to apply for the European Capital of Innovation category, provided that it has a minimum population of 50000 inhabitants and that the city did not apply for the European Rising Innovative City category. The candidate towns and cities for the European Rising Innovative City category must have a population of 50000 and up to 249999 inhabitants.
• Winners of former European Capital of Innovation Awards editions, as well as runners-up of the edition 2023 are not eligible. This does not apply to previous finalist cities.
• Applicants that have already received an EU or Euratom prize cannot receive a second prize for the same activities.

Joint applications by a group of applicants are not accepted.