Innovative Advanced Materials (IAMs) For Robust, Fast Curing Sealants And Coatings For Manufacturing And Final Assembly (IA) (Innovative Advanced Materials For Europe Partnership)
HORIZON Innovation Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-MATERIALS-43-two-stage
- Programme
- INDUSTRY two-stage
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Closed (31094503)
- Opening Date
- May 22, 2025
- Deadline
- September 23, 2025
- Deadline Model
- two-stage
- Budget
- €13,000,000
- Min Grant Amount
- €6,500,000
- Max Grant Amount
- €6,500,000
- Expected Number of Grants
- 2
- Keywords
- HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-MATERIALS-43-two-stageHORIZON-CL4-2025-05-two-stage
Description
Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:
- Support the implementation of the Commission Communication on Advanced Materials for Industrial Leadership[1].
- Prolong lifespan and performance of components and products across sectors using IAMs-based coatings, functionalised surfaces and/or sealings to withstand specific or challenging requirements and/or harsh environments;
- Lower maintenance needs and overall reduced Cost of Ownership for essential, structural or functional components and products;
- Lower environmental impact through improved resource efficiency, reduced energy consumption, increased recyclability at end of life and/or substitution of hazardous substances.
- Proof of concept of the ‘safe and sustainable by design’ (SSbD) framework during the development phase of the new IAMs;
- Promote industrial uptake of IAMs by facilitating scalability and/or integration into leaner industrial production processes;
One of the main factors limiting the lifespan of products (and their components) is their prolonged exposure to environmental elements. The combination of different stressors and changing conditions (operational, daily, seasonal) results in accelerated aging and premature or unanticipated failures. To prevent the resulting adverse effects, protective coatings and sealings are key to provide additional protection without requiring the reassessment of the physical design of the product/component, nor the inherent properties of the parts to be coated/sealed.
Moreover, performance evaluation of coated samples to select coating solutions which meet the demands of industrial end users constitute another bottleneck in the fast development of IAM-based coatings. In addition, recyclability is often hampered by the sealants and coatings used. The new IAMs-based coatings, functionalised surfaces and sealings should allow to decompose products and structures into recyclable or reusable parts.
Proposals should develop new and/or improved IAMs-based coatings, functionalised surfaces and/or sealings that improve recyclability, circularity and safety of developed materials and products, reduce (raw) materials consumption, costs of production, manufacturing and disassembly by:
- Combining multiple functionalities, e.g. fast curing and drying, self-curing, mechanical and durable robustness, protection from environmental agents (sun, rain, snow, humidity, corrosion, erosion, temperature, …), or a combination of beneficial thermal, acoustic, magnetic, electrical and tribological properties;
- Satisfy multiple requirements across different application areas such as electronics; (renewable) energy production and storage; automotive; maritime; aviation and rail infrastructures; construction, including HVAC[2] components;
Multidisciplinary research activities should address at least two of the following:
- Develop strategies to accelerate the time-consuming performance evaluation step to greatly reduce the times to prototyping and then to market.
- Develop functionalised surfaces (directly functionalised or via coatings), which can substantially improve the integrity, efficiency and overall performance of products and can cope with sometimes extreme surface areas (small/large) and complex and/or high aspect ratio geometries requiring advanced processing and tooling;
- Design and develop new sealants and coatings that can be applied by automated processes (higher speed and precision by digitalization), cured at room temperature (no extra heating or air conditioning of large paint shops or hangars required) and with curing times reduced by at least 90% compared to the state-of-the-art (in terms of increased productivity and/or decreased energy consumption);
- Master batch synthesis of IAMs with cutting-edge properties that allow production and processing of robust, fast and/or self-curing sealants and coatings to be applied in the manufacturing and final assembly lines in industries, and transferable between sectors;
- Produce and share new knowledge on underlying multi-scale and multi-physics phenomena to better understand materials behaviour during their lifetime, develop and validate methodologies and suitable models to predict material degradation and assess release rates from coatings and sealants used in harsh environments;
In addition, all proposals should
- Use new digital technologies including data driven approaches to push the frontiers of designing and producing IAMs with new functionalities/performance, improve materials scalability and related processes and use analytical technologies and infrastructures to characterise the efficiency, quality and effectiveness of developed sealants, coatings or surfaces;
- Contribute to the availability of FAIR[3] data and methods for safety and sustainability assessment of IAMs and for decision-making processes (at the design, engineering and end-of-life stage of IAMs and products);
- Explore possibilities to transfer and use developed IAMs or technologies in other sectors;
- Assess safety, sustainability and circularity of all components during the entire innovation cycle as well as how to decompose and sort for enhanced recyclability of all components at the end of life, in line with the safe and sustainable by design (SSbD) framework.
Proposals need to address both the IAM development and all the supporting technologies (digital and physical) needed (not existing yet) to cover the entire value chain (material development, validation, production, processing, use and end of life). Any existing technologies that do not require development or adaptation should be mentioned in the proposal.
Proposals submitted under this topic should include a business case and exploitation strategy, as outlined in the introduction to this Destination.
Research should build on existing standards or contribute to standardisation of technologies for IAM-based sealings and coatings. Interoperability for data sharing should be addressed, in accordance with the FAIR[3] data principles. Projects should build on, or seek collaboration with, existing projects in EU Member States and Associated Countries and develop synergies with other relevant European, national or regional initiatives, funding programmes and platforms. Where relevant, projects are encouraged to take advantage of and connecting to European research infrastructures and services in the area of analytical research infrastructures.
International cooperation is encouraged, especially with Japan.
In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.
This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership Innovative Advanced Materials for EU (IAM4EU). Proposals funded under this topic are part of the partnership portfolio and are expected to develop synergies with the related stakeholder community and contribute actively to the objectives of the partnership. The different stakeholder communities in IAM4EU are encouraged to coordinate amongst and across each other and foresee adequate resources for this as well as for the overall coordination with IAM4EU in the proposals.
[1] COM(2024) 98 final
[2] Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning
[3] Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable data
[4] Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable data
Destination & Scope
The research and innovation under this Destination will contribute to a paradigm shift, as regards the availability, development, use and disposal of chemicals and materials. This is necessary to guarantee Europe’s technological sovereignty and capacity to deliver on the twin green and digital transitions (it is thus strongly linked to the objectives of the Destination ‘Achieving global leadership in climate-neutral, circular and digitised industrial and digital value chains’).
To enable such a shift, an innovative, strong European R&I ecosystem for circular chemicals and materials is needed, working across different technology readiness levels. Bringing knowledge and skills together across the materials’ value chains is key to ensuring that this shift can materialise.
The requirements of the European Green Deal for safety, sustainability and circularity should be considered across the life cycle of a chemical or material. The 2022 Commission Recommendation on ‘Safe and Sustainable by Design’ (SSbD) sets out a new framework on how to achieve these objectives.
R&I activities should contribute to strengthen EU’s critical raw materials capacities along all stages of the value chain, increasing our resilience by reducing dependencies, increasing preparedness and promoting supply chain sustainability and circularity, in line with the Critical Raw Materials Act. It is necessary to improve the energy and process efficiency of extractive and processing activities and minimise their environmental impact, including GHG emissions. Advancements need to be made on finding options for replacing critical raw materials with other (advanced) materials offering at least the same functionality and taking into account the existing environmental concerns.
Advanced materials (including amongst others nano- and 2D materials) and chemicals are designed with functionality in mind. Compared to conventional materials, they have novel properties that significantly step-up performance. New digital tools are needed such as common data spaces, digital twins, industrial virtual worlds, as well as novel (autonomous) design, synthesis, development, characterisation and fabrication tools as well as continuous training of scientists on these new tools.
To secure unimpeded market entry, appropriate test methods are needed. New chemicals and materials should be developed using the SSbD framework and with the efficiency and circularity of materials in mind, also for their inclusion in products. This calls for tools, models and data for robust SSbD, including animal-free new approach methodologies and systematic life-cycle assessments. Bio-based advanced materials/chemicals and the integration and interaction of biological and artificial materials and components offer new opportunities to reduce resource dependencies and maintain sustainability.
Achieving the circularity of both raw materials and advanced materials is a key future challenge. Establishing new material flows, recovery, recycling and upcycling of materials from waste are challenges in themselves, but they also require information sharing along and across value chains and development of new business models allowing to foster innovative solutions related to technological progress, such as in materials design.
Uptake of advanced materials as well as a more efficient use of materials should be fostered in product and materials-based technology developments. This also requires new business models to be developed for the deployment of circular technologies and value chains as well as for providing product-as-a-service models, on-demand manufacturing, take-back-schemes and other service-based businesses. Strong support to SMEs is required so they can thrive in this materials ecosystem.
Business cases and exploitation strategies for industrialisation:
This section applies only to those topics in this Destination, for which proposals should demonstrate the expected outcomes by including a business case and exploitation strategy for industrialisation.
A business case and a credible initial exploitation strategy are essential components in the ultimate success of an industry-based project, as well as its prospects to attract further investments for deployment. They will both be decisive factors under the impact criterion, and proposers are encouraged to use the extended page limit to present a carefully considered business case and exploitation strategy, backed by the management of the companies involved.
The business case should demonstrate the expected impact of the proposal in terms of enhanced market opportunities for the participants and deployment in the EU, in the short to medium term. It should describe the targeted market(s); estimated market size in the EU and globally; user and customer needs; and demonstrate that the solutions will match the market and user needs in a cost-effective manner; and describe the expected market position and competitive advantage.
The exploitation strategy should identify obstacles, requirements and necessary actions involved in reaching higher TRLs (Technology Readiness Levels), for example: securing the required investments, including through possible synergies with other programmes; accessing the required skills; matching value chains; enhancing product robustness; securing industrial integrators; and user acceptance.
For TRLs 6 and 7, a credible strategy to achieve future full-scale deployment in the EU is expected, indicating the intentions of the industrial partners after the end of the project.
Where relevant, in the context of skills, it is recommended to develop training material to endow workers with the right skillset in order to support the uptake and deployment of new innovative products, services, and processes developed in the different projects. This material should be tested and be scalable, and can potentially be up-scaled through the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+). This will help the European labour force to close the skill gaps in the relevant sectors and occupational groups and improve employment and social levels across the EU and associated countries.
For topics in this destination, consortia (if selected for funding) could consider voluntary contributions in terms of data, indicators and knowledge to relevant Joint Research Centre (JRC) platforms for capitalising the knowledge developed in their projects and become more policy relevant:
- INnovation Centre for Industrial Transformation and Emissions (INCITE) (https://innovation-centre-for-industrial-transformation.ec.europa.eu/).
- The Energy and Industry Geography Lab: EIGL (https://energy-industry-geolab.jrc.ec.europa.eu/).
Innovation Actions — Legal entities established in China are not eligible to participate in Innovation Actions in any capacity. Please refer to the Annex B of the General Annexes of this Work Programme for further details.
Eligibility & Conditions
General conditions
1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout
Applicants submitting a proposal under the blind evaluation pilot (see General Annex F) must not disclose their organisation names, acronyms, logos nor names of personnel in the proposal abstract and Part B of their first-stage application (see General Annex E).
2. Eligible Countries
described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.
A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
3. Other Eligible Conditions
described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion
described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes.
5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds
This topic is part of the blind evaluation pilot under which first stage proposals will be evaluated blindly.
are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes.
5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes
are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual.
5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement
described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes.
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants
Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (2021-2025) [[This decision is available on the Funding and Tenders Portal, in the reference documents section for Horizon Europe, under ‘Simplified costs decisions’ or through this link: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/ls-decision_he_en.pdf]].
described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes.
Specific conditions
described in the [specific topic of the Work Programme]
Application and evaluation forms and model grant agreement (MGA):
Application form templates — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System
Stage 1: Standard application form (HE RIA IA Stage 1 BLIND)
Stage 2: 2025 RIA/IA Application form: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/temp-form/af/af_he-ria-ia_v9.0_en.pdf
Evaluation form templates — will be used with the necessary adaptations
Strage 1: Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA and CSA Stage 1 BLIND)
Stage 2: 2025 RIA/IA Evaluation form: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/temp-form/ef/ef_he-ria-ia_v3.0_en.pdf
Guidance
Model Grant Agreements (MGA)
Call-specific instructions
2025 Detailed budget table: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/temp-form/af/detailed-budget-table_he-ls-euratom_v3.3_en.xlsm
Information on financial support to third parties (HE)
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 7. Digital, Industry and Space
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 14. General Annexes
HE Framework Programme 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764
EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509
Decision authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
Frequently Asked Questions About Innovative Advanced Materials (IAMs) For Robust, Fast Curing Sealants And Coatings For Manufacturing And Final Assembly (IA) (Innovative Advanced Materials For Europe Partnership)
Support & Resources
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Latest Updates
GENERALISED FEEDBACK FOR SUCCESSFUL APPLICANTS AFTER STAGE 1
Call HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-two-stage (stage 1)
To best ensure equal treatment, successful Stage 1 applicants do not receive evaluation summary reports (ESRs) pertaining to their proposals. Instead, the Agency provides generalised feedback with information and advice that might assist applicants in preparing Stage 2 full proposals.
This generalised feedback comprises the most common shortcomings identified in the ESRs of successful Stage 1 applicants. It is not intended as individual feedback for a specific ESR. In preparing a Stage 2 full proposal, applicants may choose to address or clarify these shortcomings.
Please be mindful that a stage 2 full proposal will undergo more detailed evaluation, possibly by a new group of independent external experts. It is essential to ensure that the full proposal is consistent with the brief outline proposal submitted at Stage 1. It must NOT differ substantially.
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-MATERIALS-43-two-stage (stage 1) - Innovative Advanced Materials (IAMs) for robust, fast curing sealants and coatings for manufacturing and final assembly (IA) (Innovative Advanced Materials for Europe partnership)
Excellence
The objectives are over-ambitious and they are not supported by realistic KPIs. The sheer number of objectives <cut number> makes it difficult to identify the primary focus areas, and the structure appears scattered at times. This weakens the perception of a unified concept and raises concerns about the feasibility of delivering such a broad scope within the proposed timeframe. Some KPIs are not convincingly quantified.
The starting TRLs are not sufficiently justified. Starting TRL is mentioned but not sufficiently substantiated for the selected systems. It is not adequately explained what the physics-driven models of the digital twin will predict, making the associated TRL not sufficiently convincing.
Modelling is not adequately described, particularly with respect to <cut sentence>, which is important as the data-based materials selection relies heavily on these models.
The analysis of the state-of art is incomplete. Open science aspects and the data management plan are described in too generic terms. The comparative benchmarking of the claimed improvements against existing commercial solutions is not fully detailed. The presented work goes does not go beyond the state-of-the-art. Current scientific and technological state-of-the-art is insufficiently detailed in several aspects and lacks appropriate supporting references. Consequently, the claimed advancement beyond the SoA is not convincingly demonstrated for certain materials and processes to be developed. Proposal lacks a credible preliminary cost estimation and analysis of the materials and processes developed in comparison with current technological solutions.
Certain methodological aspects are insufficiently detailed. Over-ambition, unclear prioritisation and insufficient detail on industrial validation and scalability introduce risks to the overall feasibility and coherence of the approach.
The proposal lacks sufficient detail on scaling and validation pathways, particularly regarding pilot-scale demonstrations, industrial partner roles, and performance testing under operational conditions.
The proposal does not adequately address supply chain dynamics or implementation strategies, which are critical for achieving real-world impact.
The objective linked with the development of <cut sentence> fails to describe with specific details key aspects required to assess the feasibility. The proposal fails to provide clarity on the baseline and specific targets for key properties of <cut sentence>, for the evaluation of the effectiveness of their multifunctionality and comparison of features with a defined baseline. Furthermore, for <cut sentence>, no specific key property metrics are defined. The proposal provides limited detail on how experimental and AI-based validation will be quantitatively integrated.
The analysis remains largely qualitative and lacks quantitative benchmarking. The absence of comparative performance metrics weakens the justification of the claimed technological leap and limits the disruptive potential. The implementation lacks methodological depth regarding data acquisition, model training, and validation, limiting assessment of reproducibility.
It fails to provide details on the methodological approach to evaluate the performance of the <cut sentence> processes for new materials with respect to the process efficiency and the structure/quality/uniformity obtained. The proposal refers to an AI-assisted design and preparation of materials, but fails to detail out the specific methodological approaches and AI tools to be used. The technical robustness of the AI components is insufficiently detailed. The limited description of fallback mechanisms, resilience to data or model failure, and long-term maintainability leaves some uncertainty about the robustness of the AI system under industrial deployment. The proposed AI approaches mention robust validation gates and periodic recalibration, but the description lacks sufficient detail on the machine learning operations methodology itself. Specifically, the absence of explicit explainable AI methodologies makes it difficult to adequately evaluate the robustness, transparency, and trustworthiness of the predictive <cut sentence>.
Data Management Plan (DMP) covers data ingestion, quality checks, traceability, it does not specify where and for how long the final, curated datasets will be preserved to ensure long-term availability and reproducibility, which is a key requirement of a robust DMP. Complexities of data retrieval and sharing related to life cycle analysis are insufficiently addressed.
Gender dimension is not sufficiently described.
Insufficient consideration for safe use at scale of <cut sentence>, albeit the SSbD measures and containment strategies which will be followed.
Different disciplines necessary to carry out the proposal tasks and how these will interact is not sufficiently described in the proposal.
Impact
Impacts are substantiated based on the expected outcomes mentioned in the topic description, without sufficient explanation about the long-term impact by the proposal.
The use cases are only linked to <cut sentence> and do not sufficiently offer direct exploitation in other sectors. The cross-sectorial exploitation is unclear. The social impact is not detailed enough. The direct job creation within the consortium has not been sufficiently addressed nor estimated.
The absence of preliminary business cases at this stage is insufficiently justified, especially given the stating TRL levels. The economic impact claims are not entirely robust as there is insufficient elaboration on quantification of market potential, addressable market size, implementation costs, and value chain dynamics. Current references to <cut sentence> sector values are overly broad and not sufficiently tailored to targets.
Baselines and calculation assumptions are not fully detailed, weakening the credibility of the quantitative projections.
Scientific impacts are mentioned in terms of collaboration and dissemination but lack quantified targets such as publication numbers or citation goals.
It does not provide specific details on market validation, regulatory planning, and quantification of long-term economic and societal benefits.
Regulatory compliance actions lack precise timelines or references to specific certification processes, and market barriers are addressed through general dissemination and demonstration rather than quantified adoption strategies. It also fails to specify with enough detail the measures to engage with policy decision makers, required to ensure alignment of the project results with legislation requirements and industrial uptake of the new proposed technical coating solutions. The identification of technical barriers is inadequate.
Limited data on potential emissions or recyclability validation have been included int the proposal.
Differing requirements for data models concerning material properties, process set-points, and metrology outputs among partner systems pose a significant risk, for which the proposal fails to provide information on approaches to mitigate these challenges.
The proposal emphasizes transfer of the concepts to be developed to <cut sentence> but it does not provide sufficiently concrete planning specific to the demanding regulatory hurdles of these sectors and concrete information on how to address possible gaps on the certification pathway, such as pre-normative datasets and standards, a "cross-sector evaluation", specific requirements associated with the different sectors, and detailed engagement plans with the different potential market segments.
Wider systemic changes, such as influence or alignment with industry standards, certifications, or widespread market adoption are not sufficiently explained.
Environmental risks at commercial scale are only qualitatively described and the risk mitigation measures for scale-up variability are not sufficiently convincing. The estimation of the environmental or economic impact is not adequately detailed regarding the chosen material and the process. Technological barriers are not sufficiently considered. Potential barriers to achieving the expected outcomes and impacts, along with corresponding mitigation measures, are insufficiently addressed. In addition, potential negative environmental impacts and their management are insufficiently considered.
Important barriers are not adequately addressed, such as financial, regulatory, social or environmental. The long-term environmental impact materials at scale is not sufficiently addressed, sector-specific standards or are not deeply integrated into the impact planning, while the higher cost of the new IAMs has not been adequately taken into account in cost saving estimations.
CALL UPDATE
FLASH EVALUATION RESULTS
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-two-stage (stage 1)
Published: 06.05.2025
Deadline: 23.09.2025
Available budget: EUR 161,000,000
In accordance with General Annex D of the Work Programme, the evaluation of the first-stage proposals was made looking only at the criteria ‘Excellence’ and ‘Impact’. The threshold for both criteria was 4. The overall threshold (applying to the sum of the two individual scores) was set for each topic/type of action with separate call-budget-split at a level that allowed the total requested budget of proposals admitted to stage 2 be as close as possible to 2 times the available budget (and not below 1.5 times the budget). The thresholds that were applied are the following:
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-11-two-stage - “Enhanced logistics and operations of construction sites (IA)”: 9.0 points
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-21-two-stage - “Demonstrators for clusters of social circular enterprises (IA)”: 8.0 points
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-35-two-stage - “Developing and embedding upcycling technologies into viable business (Processes4Planet partnership) (IA)”: 9.5 points
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-MATERIALS-42-two-stage - “Innovative Advanced Materials (IAMs) for product monitoring, smart maintenance and repair strategies in the construction sector (RIA) (Innovative Advanced Materials for Europe partnership)”: 8.5 points
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-MATERIALS-43-two-stage - “Innovative Advanced Materials (IAMs) for robust, fast curing sealants and coatings for manufacturing and final assembly (IA) (Innovative Advanced Materials for Europe partnership)”: 8.5 points
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-MATERIALS-51-two-stage - “Development of safe and sustainable by design alternatives to Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) (IA)”: 9.0 points
The results of the evaluation for each topic are as follows:
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-11-two-stage | HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-21-two-stage | |
Number of proposals submitted (including proposals transferred from or to other calls) | 40 | 8 |
Number of inadmissible proposals | 1 | 1 |
Number of ineligible proposals | 0 | 0 |
Number of above-threshold proposals | 7 | 3 |
Total budget requested for above-threshold proposals | 44,779,635.45 € | 14,530,000.00 € |
Number of proposals in the reserve list | N/A | N/A |
Ranking distribution: | ||
Number of proposals with scores lower or equal to 10 and higher or equal to 9 | 7 | 2 |
Number of proposals with scores lower than 9 and higher or equal to 8 | 10 | 1 |
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-35-two-stage | HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-42-two-stage | |
Number of proposals submitted (including proposals transferred from or to other calls) | 70 | 54 |
Number of inadmissible proposals | 1 | 1 |
Number of ineligible proposals | 2 | 0 |
Number of above-threshold proposals | 11 | 11 |
Total budget requested for above-threshold proposals | 114,647,987.50 € | 64,480,000.00 € |
Number of proposals in the reserve list | N/A | N/A |
Ranking distribution: | ||
Number of proposals with scores lower or equal to 10 and higher or equal to 9 | 11 | 3 |
Number of proposals with scores lower than 9 and higher or equal to 8 | 0 | 8 |
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-43-two-stage | HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-51-two-stage | |
Number of proposals submitted (including proposals transferred from or to other calls) | 42 | 29 |
Number of inadmissible proposals | 1 | 0 |
Number of ineligible proposals | 0 | 0 |
Number of above-threshold proposals | 15 | 12 |
Total budget requested for above-threshold proposals | 88,118,749.00 € | 83,273,825.00 € |
Number of proposals in the reserve list | N/A | N/A |
Ranking distribution: | ||
Number of proposals with scores lower or equal to 10 and higher or equal to 9 | 5 | 12 |
Number of proposals with scores lower than 9 and higher or equal to 8 | 10 | 0 |
Summary of observer report:
The Independent Observer (IO) confirmed that the evaluation adhered fully to the applicable rules for the calls. Proposals were competently, fairly, and equitably assessed by the external experts. The IO observed no activities that gave rise to specific concerns regarding the integrity or fairness of the process. The experts generally expressed satisfaction with the procedures, and the management of the call. The IO has provided specific recommendations intended to enhance the overall efficiency of future evaluation cycles.
We recently informed the applicants about the evaluation results for their proposals.
For questions, please contact the Research Enquiry Service.
CALL UPDATE: PROPOSAL NUMBERS
PROPOSAL NUMBERS
Call HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-two-stage_stage1 has closed on the 23/09/2025.
243 proposals have been submitted.
The breakdown per topic is:
Topic ID | Topic title | Action type | Proposals submitted |
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-11-two-stage | Enhanced logistics and operations of construction sites (IA) | IA | 40 |
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-21-two-stage | Demonstrators for clusters of social circular enterprises (IA) | IA | 8 |
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-TWIN-TRANSITION-35-two-stage | Developing and embedding upcycling technologies into viable business (Processes4Planet partnership) (IA) | IA | 70 |
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-MATERIALS-42-two-stage | Innovative Advanced Materials (IAMs) for product monitoring, smart maintenance and repair strategies in the construction sector (RIA) (Innovative Advanced Materials for Europe partnership) | RIA | 54 |
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-MATERIALS-43-two-stage | Innovative Advanced Materials (IAMs) for robust, fast curing sealants and coatings for manufacturing and final assembly (IA) (Innovative Advanced Materials for Europe partnership) | IA | 42 |
HORIZON-CL4-2025-05-MATERIALS-51-two-stage | Development of safe and sustainable by design alternatives to Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) (IA) | IA | 29 |
Total: | 243 | ||
Evaluation results are expected to be communicated around 3rd week of December 2025.
A.R.
On Business case and exploitation strategy
Requirement to include Business case and exploitation strategy is applicable only to 2nd stage full applications.
Reminder on proposal part B page limit and formatting conditions
1.Proposal part B page limit
Page limit: The page limit is 10 pages.
The page limit will be applied automatically. At the end of a proposal part B template inside the Submission System you can see the structure of the actual proposal that you need to submit, please remove all instruction pages that are watermarked.
If you attempt to upload a proposal longer than the specified limit before the deadline, you will receive an automatic warning and will be advised to shorten and re-upload the proposal. After the deadline, excess pages (in over-long proposals/applications) will be automatically made invisible, and will not be taken into consideration by the experts. The proposal is a self-contained document. Experts will be instructed to ignore hyperlinks to information that is specifically designed to expand the proposal, thus circumventing the page limit.
Please, do not consider the page limit as a target! It is in your interest to keep your text as concise as possible, since experts rarely view unnecessarily long proposals in a positive light.
2.Proposal part B formatting conditions
The following formatting conditions apply (as listed in a proposal part B template inside the Submission System) and will be checked by the Agency during an admissibility check of submitted proposals.
The reference font for the body text of proposals is Times New Roman (Windows platforms), Times/Times New Roman (Apple platforms) or Nimbus Roman No. 9 L (Linux distributions).
The use of a different font for the body text is not advised and is subject to the cumulative conditions that the font is legible and that its use does not significantly shorten the representation of the proposal in number of pages compared to using the reference font (for example with a view to bypass the page limit).
The minimum font size allowed is 11 points. Standard character spacing and a minimum of single line spacing is to be used. This applies to the body text, including text in tables.
Text elements other than the body text, such as headers, foot/end notes, captions, formula's, may deviate, but must be legible.
The page size is A4, and all margins (top, bottom, left, right) should be at least 15 mm (not including any footers or headers).
Proposal part B template inside the Submission System document is tagged. Do not delete the tags; they are needed for our internal processing of information, mostly for statistical gathering. In that light, please do not move, delete, re-order, alter tags in any way, as they might create problems in our internal processing tools. Tags do not affect or influence the outcome of your application.
Please note that due to a technical issue, during the first days of publication of this call, the topic page did not display the description of the corresponding destination. This problem is now solved. In addition to the information published in the topic page, you can always find a full description of destinations:
* destination 1: Achieving global leadership in climate-neutral, circular and digitised industrial and digital value chains;
* destination 2: Achieving technological leadership for Europe's open strategic autonomy in raw materials, chemicals and innovative materials,
that are relevant for the call in the Work Programme 2025 part for “Industry”. Please select from the work programme the destination relevant to your topic and take into account the description and expected impacts of that destination for the preparation of your proposal.