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Call / details
R&D for the next generation of scientific instrumentation, tools, methods, digitalisation and solutions for research infrastructure upgrades HORIZON-INFRA-2026-TECH-01-01
ID 168 2026-03-10 / 2026-06-16
Description
Program: Horizon Europe (HORIZON)
Call: Research Infrastructures 2026 (HORIZON-INFRA-2026-01)
Type of action: HORIZON-RIA HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions
Topic description
Expected Outcome:
Project results are expected to contribute to several of the following expected outcomes:
- enhanced scientific competitiveness of European research infrastructures;
- enhanced research infrastructure capacity to address research challenges and EU policy priorities;
- increased greening and resilience of research infrastructures;
- increased efficiency of research infrastructures through digitalisation;
- increased collaboration of research infrastructures with universities, research organisations and industry, fostering an innovation ecosystem that provides the foundations for the development of innovative companies and startups while considering EU technological sovereignty;
- fostering the uptake of innovation outside the scientific research market, through co-development with industry of advanced technologies for research infrastructures;
- integration of research infrastructures into local, regional, national and global innovation systems and promotion of entrepreneurial culture.
Scope:
The aim of this topic is to deliver innovative scientific instrumentation, tools, digitalisation, methods and solutions which advance the state-of-art of research infrastructures (RIs) in the EU and Associated Countries and show transformative potential in RIs operation. The related developments, which underpin the provision of improved and advanced services, should lead RIs to support new areas of research and/or a wider community of users, including industrial users.
Cutting-edge technologies will also enhance the potential of RIs to contribute to addressing EU policy objectives and socio-economic challenges.
Proposals should be complementary with actions funded under topics HORIZON-INFRA-2022-TECH-01-01[1] and HORIZON-INFRA-2024-TECH-01-01[2], targeting different instrumentation, tools, methods, digitalisation, and solutions. The complementarity with previous actions should be clearly explained in the proposal.
Proposals should address the following aspects, as relevant:
- research and development of new scientific instrumentation, tools, digitalisation, and methods for research infrastructures;
- their technology validation and prototyping;
- training of RI staff for the operation and use of these new solutions; when relevant, developing skills on technical validation to industrial standards;
- the innovative potential for industrial exploitation of the solutions and/or for the benefits of the society, including technology concept or validation in laboratory for use by SMEs startups or scaleups.
To minimise the research infrastructures’ environmental footprint and increase resilience e.g. with respect to energy consumption, climate-related aspects or use of critical components and materials, greening and resilience aspects should be addressed for all proposed scientific instrumentation, tools, methods, digitalisation, and solutions.
Developments for the specific use case of research infrastructures are expected to go beyond TRL 4. When proposed developments have the potential to lead to applications beyond the specific use case of research infrastructures, the TRL of these additional developments should go up to TRL 3-4.
Proposals should include at least two different research infrastructures as beneficiaries each of them being an ESFRI research infrastructure a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) or another research infrastructure that is an international European research organisation. Other technological partners, including industry, SMEs, startups or scaleups should also be involved, thus promoting innovation and knowledge sharing through co-development of new technical solutions for research infrastructures with due consideration of EU technological sovereignty.
Budget: 110 000 000 EUR
Indicative number of grants: 11
More informations on the link.