Support To The European Strategy Forum On Research Infrastructures
HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-04
- Programme
- Research Infrastructures 2025
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Closed (31094503)
- Opening Date
- May 6, 2025
- Deadline
- September 18, 2025
- Deadline Model
- single-stage
- Budget
- €16,500,000
- Min Grant Amount
- €1,000,000
- Max Grant Amount
- €1,500,000
- Expected Number of Grants
- 11
- Keywords
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-04HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01
Description
Expected Outcome:
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
- enhanced efficiency, impact and visibility of ESFRI strategy and actions;
- better structured and strengthened European research infrastructure ecosystem;
- reinforced global competitiveness of the European Research Area;
- coordination and alignment of EU and national priorities for research infrastructures;
- impact assessment of ESFRI.
Scope:
The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) brings together policy makers, funding bodies, and the scientific community to identify joint investment priorities for pan-European research infrastructures as well as to foster their implementation, sustainability and impact. A comprehensive and efficient support structure is essential for the effective execution of ESFRI's tasks and activities.
In this respect, the project should provide administrative support to the ESFRI Chair and the ESFRI Executive Board, and in particular, it should support ESFRI, the ESFRI working groups and other ESFRI bodies in carrying out all of the following activities:
- development and publishing of the ESFRI Roadmap and Landscape Analysis;
- effective evaluation of new ESFRI Roadmap applications and ESFRI project monitoring after 2026, using also external expertise;
- strengthening ESFRI’s analytical capacity, including through the use of external expertise in support of ESFRI policy and the ESFRI Roadmap processes;
- effective evaluation and monitoring of research infrastructures on the ESFRI Roadmap through appropriate ICT and analytical tools, using also external expertise;
- development and implementation of the ESFRI communication and outreach strategy, including organisation of ESFRI-led conferences and outreach events;
- fostering cooperation, exchange of experiences and good practices between the research infrastructures, their managers and stakeholders, as well as the funding bodies, including managing authorities of Cohesion policy programmes and policy makers;
- ensuring cooperation of ESFRI with ERA related groups and initiatives, with the EOSC initiative as well as with any other relevant initiatives, bodies and stakeholders at European or international level, including via the ESFRI Stakeholder Forum;
- calling on third party/ies to carry out an impact assessment of ESFRI taking account of suitable indicators proposed by ESFRI.
The project should organise its workplan in a sufficiently flexible way so as to be able to adapt to changing support needs of ESFRI. A mechanism with ESFRI should be foreseen to ensure optimal adaptation to ESFRI’s needs over the course of the project.
All software developed under this destination should be open source, licensed under a CC0 public domain dedication or under an open source licence as recommended by the Free Software Foundation[1] and the Open Source Initiative[2].
Proposals could consider the inclusion of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) Support Services Directorate in their research infrastructure portfolio. The JRC offers its experience in assessing, setting the strategy, maintaining, operating and providing access to external researchers to its research infrastructures in various fields of science. The JRC is an ESFRI stakeholder and collaborates with several ESFRI/ERIC consortia as an associated partner. In this regard, the JRC will consider collaborating with any successful proposal.
[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list#SoftwareLicenses
[2] https://opensource.org/licenses
Destination & Scope
The objective of this destination is to consolidate and evolve the European research infrastructure landscape, considering notably the development of pan-European research infrastructures prioritised by ESFRI and the ERICs, and underpinning an effective and agile European Research Area. It supports actions to develop an integrated European ecosystem of research infrastructures, including single-sited facilities, distributed facilities and networks of facilities providing joint services.
The expected impact of the EU intervention on the activities supported under this destination notably includes:
- Further consolidation, evolution and optimisation of the European research infrastructure landscape, with the objective to enhance its capacity and capability to support the continuum of research and innovation needs.
- Exploring ways forward towards improved sustainability of the research infrastructure ecosystem and synergies amongst research infrastructure funding sources, considering that funding an increasing number and size of pan-European research infrastructures has a significant impact on research budgets.
- Support for human resources and skills development for an optimal functioning of research infrastructures, through continuous professional training and upskilling of staff in charge of research infrastructures, considering that highly skilled personnel play a vital role in constructing, evolving and operating research infrastructures and serving users; and thus, research infrastructures must be able to attract, up-skill, and keep specialised staff.
Eligibility & Conditions
General conditions
1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout
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
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) may participate as member of the consortium selected for funding.
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
The granting authority can fund a maximum of one project.
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
Standard application form (HE RIA, IA)
Standard application form (HE CSA)
Evaluation form templates — will be used with the necessary adaptations
Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA)
Standard evaluation form (HE CSA)
Guidance
Model Grant Agreements (MGA)
Framework Partnership Agreement FPA
Call-specific instructions
Information on financial support to third parties (HE)
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 3. Research Infrastructures
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 Support To The European Strategy Forum On Research Infrastructures
Support & Resources
Online Manual is your guide on the procedures from proposal submission to managing your grant.
Horizon Europe Programme Guide contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe.
Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management.
Research Enquiry Service – ask questions about any aspect of European research in general and the EU Research Framework Programmes in particular.
National Contact Points (NCPs) – get guidance, practical information and assistance on participation in Horizon Europe. There are also NCPs in many non-EU and non-associated countries (‘third-countries’).
Enterprise Europe Network – contact your EEN national contact for advice to businesses with special focus on SMEs. The support includes guidance on the EU research funding.
IT Helpdesk – contact the Funding & Tenders Portal IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc.
European IPR Helpdesk assists you on intellectual property issues.
CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk and ETSI Research Helpdesk – the European Standards Organisations advise you how to tackle standardisation in your project proposal.
The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment – consult the general principles and requirements specifying the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers, employers and funders of researchers.
Partner Search help you find a partner organisation for your proposal.
Latest Updates
EVALUATION results
Published: 15.05.2025
Deadline: 18.09.2025
Available budget: EUR million 400.50
The results of the evaluation for each topic are as follows:
Evaluation results | ||||||||||||||||||
| HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-01 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-02 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-03 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-04 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-05 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-01 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-02 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-03 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-04 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-05 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-01 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-02 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-03 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-04 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-TECH-01 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-TECH-02 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-TECH-03 | HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-TECH-04 |
Number of proposals submitted (including proposals transferred from or to other calls) | 16 | 11 | 20 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 12 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 15 | 7 | 15 | 5 | 20 |
Number of inadmissible proposals |
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| 1 |
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| 2 |
Number of ineligible proposals |
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| 1 |
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Number of above-threshold proposals | 11 | 11 | 16 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 15 | 6 | 15 | 5 | 13 |
Total budget requested for above-threshold proposals | 15,38 | 15,94 | 61,45 | 3,00 | 4,47 | 41,50 | 54,40 | 14,99 | 31,98 | 99,94 | 50,45 | 14,99 | 19,65 | 74,16 | 30,47 | 155,15 | 46,86 | 123,15 |
Number of proposals retained for funding | 8 | 11 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 4 |
Number of proposals in the reserve list | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Funding threshold[1],[2] | 12,50[2] | 12,00[2] | 13,50 | 12,50 | 13[2] | 12,00 | 15,00 | 10,00 | 15,00 | 14,00 | 12,00[2] | 12,5[2] | 12,00[2] | 13,00[2] | 13,00 | 13,50 | 12,50 | 13,00 |
Ranking distribution | ||||||||||||||||||
Number of proposals with scores lower or equal to 15 and higher or equal to 14 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 1 |
Number of proposals with scores lower than 14 and higher or equal to 13 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
Number of proposals with scores lower than 13 and higher or equal to 10 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 9 |
1 Proposals with the same score were ranked according to the priority order procedure set out in the call conditions (for HE, in the General Annexes to the Work Programme or specific arrangements in the specific call/topic conditions).
2 According to the specific condition of :
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-01 to ensure a balanced portfolio coverage, grants are awarded “To ensure a balanced portfolio covering a wide range of domains, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but at least also to those proposals that are the highest ranked within each domain, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.”.
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-02 to ensure a balanced portfolio coverage, grants are awarded “To ensure a balanced coverage of the targeted ESFRI Projects, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but at least also to those proposals that are the highest ranked for each targeted ESFRI Project, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.”.
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-05 to ensure a balanced portfolio coverage, grants are awarded “To ensure a balanced portfolio covering the different areas, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but at least also to those proposals that are the highest ranked within each area, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.”.
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-01 to ensure a balanced portfolio coverage, grants are awarded “To ensure a balanced portfolio covering the different areas, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but at least also to those proposals that are the highest ranked within each area, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.”.
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-02 to ensure a balanced portfolio coverage, grants are awarded “To ensure a balanced portfolio covering the different areas, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but at least also to those proposals that are the highest ranked within each area, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.”.
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-03 to ensure a balanced portfolio coverage, grants are awarded “To ensure a balanced portfolio covering the different areas, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but at least also to those proposals that are the highest ranked within each area, provided that the applications attain all thresholds.”.
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-04 to ensure a balanced portfolio coverage, grants are awarded “To ensure a balanced portfolio covering as many scientific domains for service provision as possible, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking but also to proposals that address a scientific domain (and sub-domain if needed) not covered by a higher ranked proposal, provided that the proposals attain all thresholds”.
We recently informed the applicants about the evaluation results for their proposals.
For questions, please contact the Research Enquiry Service.
Summary of observer report:
The evaluation of the HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01 call was carried out in accordance with established Horizon Europe procedures and demonstrated a high level of transparency, fairness, and procedural integrity. The call covered 18 topics across four destinations and involved the assessment of 159 submitted proposals, of which 155 were found to be eligible and admissible.
The evaluation was implemented through a fully remote process, comprising individual expert assessments, consensus report preparation, virtual consensus meetings, and online panel meetings. All key milestones were respected, and the overall duration of the process was efficient. The observer did not identify any indications that the compact duration of the evaluation had a negative impact on the quality, robustness, or transparency of the assessments.
Throughout all phases, REA placed strong and consistent emphasis on procedural transparency, equal treatment of proposals, and the independence of expert judgement. Comprehensive briefing materials, structured evaluation support tools, and consistent moderation practices supported a coherent and well-calibrated application of the evaluation criteria across topics. Project and Programme Officers and moderators fulfilled a clearly facilitative role, ensuring structured deliberations without influencing the substance of expert discussions.
Conflicts of interest were managed in a systematic and rigorous manner, with all identified cases duly declared and handled in line with the applicable rules. Confidentiality requirements were repeatedly reinforced during evaluation activities, and no breaches of confidentiality, impartiality, or compliance with the rules were observed.
Overall, the observer concludes that the evaluation of HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01 was conducted in full conformity with the applicable rules and guidance documents, providing a sound, credible, and transparent basis for the selection and ranking of proposals in line with the objectives of the Research Infrastructures Work Programme.
PROPOSAL NUMBERS
Call HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01 has closed on 18/09/2025.
159 proposals have been submitted.
The breakdown per topic is:
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-01: 16 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-02: 11 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-03: 20 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-04: 1 proposal
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-DEV-05: 4 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-01: 6 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-02: 8 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-03: 4 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-04: 4 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-EOSC-05: 12 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-01: 5 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-02: 4 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-03: 2 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-04: 15 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-TECH-01: 7 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-TECH-02: 15 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-TECH-03: 5 proposals
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-TECH-04: 20 proposals
Evaluation results are expected to be communicated in Feb. 2026.