Expected Outcome:
The Apply AI Strategy foresees acceleration pipelines to speed up the adoption of AI-powered robotics and ensure continuity from research and innovation to deployment. By developing next-generation platforms as common building blocks, this topic will support these pipelines across multiple use cases.
Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
- Novel robot design technique, materials and control techniques for flexible and meticulous manipulation of robots in unstructured environment, with high autonomy and in collaboration with humans.
- New generation of flexible and safe robot systems validated in key application sectors defined in the Apply AI strategy[1], developed with a human-centric approach.
Scope:
Dynamic real-world environments require a new generation of agile, cost-effective, and intelligent, and modular robot platforms able to interact in safe and effective manner with humans across diverse industrial and service applications. These systems should be easily reconfigurable and adaptable, enabling deployment in real-time, high-performance operational contexts with minimal integration effort.
To ensure relevance and uptake, solutions must address industrial demands for high speed, precision, and reliability, enabling deployment in real-time, high-performance operational contexts.
Emphasis should be placed on the development of robotic systems that can be seamlessly integrated into existing industrial and service workflows, enhancing productivity and operational flexibility.
In order to improve their performances, these platforms should exploit latest development in terms of new design methods, including non-rigid structures and advanced materials (e.g. composite materials), both for the main body and for manipulators and end effectors, alongside innovative actuation and sensing approaches that go beyond traditional fixed rotational or linear links.
Proposals should target robotic systems addressing high impact needs in strategic industrial and service sectors. These systems should focus on enhanced mobility, autonomy, and simplified control architectures to support safe, efficient, and flexible operation. Integration of advanced sensors (e.g. touch, proximity, vision) is essential to enable reliable human-robot interaction, especially in rare or unpredictable safety-critical scenarios, addressing current limitations of AI in such contexts.
They should also include the design of secure and efficient communication protocols to ensure interoperability between robotic systems and digital frameworks or multi-agent environments.
Collaboration with end-users and industry partners is encouraged to validate the practical applicability and impact of the proposed robotic solutions.
To ensure practical uptake, projects are expected to demonstrate clear pathways to scalability and commercial deployment, engage with industry partners and end-users for validation, adopt a safety-product approach
Coordination with HORIZON-CL4-2025-04-DIGITAL-EMERGING-05, focused on soft robotics, is encouraged to maximise impact and ensure complementarity in advancing physical capabilities of next-generation robotic systems.
This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on AI, data, and robotics (ADRA), and all proposals are expected to allocate tasks for cohesion activities with ADRA.
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Activities are expected to start at TRL 2 and achieve TRL 5 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.
[1] COM(2025) 723 Apply AI Strategy
News flashes
2026-10-08
EVALUATION RESULTS
Published: 15.01.2026
Deadline: 15.04.2026
Available budget: EUR 85,500,000.00
The results of the evaluation for each topic are as follows:
HORIZON-CL4-2026-05-DIGITAL-EMERGING-02
HORIZON-CL4-2026-05-DIGITAL-EMERGING-03
HORIZON-CL4-2026-05-MAT-PROD-25
Number of proposals submitted (including proposals transferred from or to other calls)
83
59
108
Number of inadmissible proposals
1
2
0
Number of ineligible proposals
3
1
1
Number of above-threshold proposals
64
42
99
Total budget requested for above-threshold proposals
1,170,345,703.75 €
499,059,353.25 €
682,299,097.77 €
Number of proposals retained for funding
2
2
3
Number of proposals in the reserve list
1
2
2
Funding threshold1
15
15
15
Ranking distribution
Number of proposals with scores lower or equal to 15 and higher or equal to 14
13
6
24
Number of proposals with scores lower than 14 and higher or equal to 13
15
8
23
Number of proposals with scores lower than 13 and higher or equal to 10
36
28
52
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). For HE, to determine the ranking for ‘Innovation actions’, the score for ‘Impact’ is given a weight of 1.5.
Summary of observer report:
The evaluation of the proposals of this call followed the standard procedure for single stage call evaluations. The evaluation was performed in two phases: a remote one and a central one in Brussels.
The evaluation ran smoothly, and all deadlines were met. The evaluation complied with the applicable rules.
The process was transparent and fair. The quality of the consensus reports and the evaluation summary reports was excellent.
All experts complied with the requirement to act with independence, impartiality, objectivity, accuracy, and consistency. All experts worked at the highest level of quality and performance.
The guidance provided by the responsible HaDEA service through briefings, documents, and direct consultation, was excellent.
The quality of this evaluation was excellent and achieved its purpose of funding proposals of the highest quality.
We recently informed the applicants about the evaluation results for their proposals.
For questions, please contact: the Research Enquiry Service.
2026-10-08
PROPOSAL NUMBERS
Call HORIZON-CL4-2026-05 has closed on 15 April 2026.
A total of 250 proposals were submitted in response to this call.
The number of proposals for each topic is shown below:
HORIZON-CL4-2026-05-DIGITAL-EMERGING-02 - Next-Generation AI Agents for Real-World Applications in the Apply AI sectors (RIA) (Partnership in AI, Data and Robotics)
83 proposals submitted (indicative topic budget 38 EUR million)
HORIZON-CL4-2026-05-DIGITAL-EMERGING-03 - Apply AI: Next-Generation Agile and Intelligent Robotics Platforms for Industrial and Service Applications (Partnership in AI, Data and Robotics) (RIA)
59 proposals submitted (indicative topic budget 25 EUR million)
HORIZON-CL4-2026-05-MAT-PROD-25 - New or enhanced Innovative Advanced Materials (IAM) enabled sensing functionality (RIA)
108 proposals submitted (indicative topic budget 22.50 EUR million)
The evaluation results are expected to be communicated in July 2026.
2026-10-08
The submission session is now available for: HORIZON-CL4-2026-05-MAT-PROD-25, HORIZON-CL4-2026-05-DIGITAL-EMERGING-02, HORIZON-CL4-2026-05-DIGITAL-EMERGING-03
