Ai-generated Digital Twins For Science
HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-TECH-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-TECH-04HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01Artificial intelligenceDigital Services and Platforms
Description
Expected Outcome:
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
- Innovative use of artificial intelligence (AI), in line with the GenAI4EU initiative[1], and other key EU initiatives, like the Apply AI strategy, is demonstrated to setup and manage highly complex modelling and simulation activities across different research infrastructures (RIs).
- New best practices and guidelines for model generation and setup, including simulation and simulation-observation data fusion, are established.
- Emergence of new applications and use cases, in line with the GenAI4EU initiative and other key EU initiatives, like the Apply AI strategy.
Scope:
The aim is to use generative artificial intelligence (AI), in line with the GenAI4EU initiative and other key EU initiatives, like the Apply AI strategy, to deliver digital twins of complex real-world systems that advance the state-of-art of European research infrastructures and show transformative potential in their operations. The solutions should pave the way for new methods to conduct research by the RIs through AI generated and powered digital twins. They should propose suitable setups for creation of new digital twins or enhancing existing ones, already available within the scientific communities and relevant research infrastructures and for which an existing baseline on generative Artificial Intelligence models exists, the required data fusions, visualisations and execution of the workflows. The focus is on key impact sectors, such as healthcare (including mental health), transportation, agriculture, environment or manufacturing, or other fields related to the Clean Industrial Deal, in line with the European objectives seeking to leverage AI to address societal challenges, improve public services and drive inclusive economic growth. The proposed solutions, underpinning the provision of improved and advanced future services, should support RIs in new areas of research and/or a wider community of users, including clearly identified and relevant industrial, scientific or policy users and enhance the potential of the RIs in addressing EU’s policy objectives and socio-economic challenges. The proposed solutions should, at least in part, be demonstrated in a relevant environment that can lead to sustainable production and include a cost estimate for the operations.
The proposed work is expected to benefit from recent advances in various AI areas, like Foundation Models (e.g. Large Language Models (LLMs)), Federated Learning and link to relevant European AI initiatives, such as the European AI factories[2], to demonstrate European capabilities to generate large on-demand impact simulations.
Proposals focusing on digital twins for decision-making in the area of the Earth systems and related socio-economic impacts will need to adhere to the standards and best practices set by the Destination Earth[3] initiative of the European Commission to allow coupling of new digital twins with the existing Destination Earth system.
The proposals should cover all of the following aspects:
- Demonstrate the ability to setup complex modelling and digital twin setups using generative AI in line with the GenAI4EU initiative and other key EU initiatives, like the Apply AI strategy.
- Ensure a data driven approach in which new simulations and Digital Twins are set up and demonstrate the chosen approach to work in at least three different application scenarios.
- Enable non-technical decision makers to express scenarios for challenges to be translated into impactful simulations, making use of existing digital twins, models and data sources.
- Demonstrate trustworthiness/reliability in the use of AI and practice clear and open communication of AI use and impact to users.
Additionally, the proposals should also include work on some of the following points:
- Best practices to use AI to generate digital twins and their setup.
- Contribute to the European AI Factories and their abilities to facilitate large scale AI setups.
- Demonstrate that proposed solutions work for at least two different scientific domains to highlight common principles and best practices in this approach.
Proposals should take advantage of the opportunities and developments offered by existing Horizon Europe research and innovation actions (RIA) developing new simulation and observation capabilities, the Horizon Europe CSA HORIZON-CL4-2025-03-HUMAN-18: GenAI4EU central Hub, and new and emerging ICT infrastructures (e.g. EuroHPC and the AI-on-demand platform). Successful proposals in the energy-intensive industrial transition field will be encouraged to closely cooperate with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) to foster coordination with on-going related activities.
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Activities are expected to achieve TRL 6 or higher by the end of the project – see General Annex B.
[1] This call falls under the ‘GenAI4EU' initiative as in the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic And Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on boosting startups and innovation in trustworthy artificial intelligence ((COM(2024) 28 final of 24.1.2024).
[2] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/ai-factories
[3] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/destination-earth
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
Subject to restrictions for the protection of European communication networks.
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
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 Ai-generated Digital Twins For Science
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.
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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.
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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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| 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.