Expected Outcome:
- New technological solutions with improved performance and reduced energy and environmental impact consumption providing significant advances towards the emergence of competitive value chains in IAM-based sensing components in Europe.
- Widespread adoption of low-cost IAM-based sensing solutions in e.g. environmental monitoring, industrial safety, and next-generation smart sensing applications including health monitoring.
Scope:
Proposals should address at least one of the following two areas.
A. IAM-enabled multifunctional surfaces able to detect and respond to changes in the environment, such as temperature, pH, moisture, microbiological or chemical pollutants, concentration of chemical species in air, gases and liquids, and converting these signals into measurable outputs. Such surfaces should demonstrate high performance in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, response time, durability and cost-effectiveness. Proposals should target applications such as environmental and ecosystems monitoring, as well as health monitoring.
B. The development of enhanced IAM-based sensor demonstrators, that enable miniaturization and integration into application systems e.g. into portable IoT devices, lightweight wearables and wearable systems. These sensors must meet key performance requirements, e.g. compatibility with silicon technology, operation in real conditions with low power consumption, high sensitivity (low limit of detection and/or high signal to noise ratio), high selectivity and fast detection speed.
Stability and resistance to extreme conditions such temperature and humidity should be taken into account. Solutions could also take inspiration from bio-mimicry.
Proposals may contribute to one or both above R&I areas. However the main area addressed must be clearly and unambiguously identified in the proposed project.
Proposals should integrate the value chain and incorporate the relevant manufacturing technologies needed to bring the developed devices towards the market.
Technology must be demonstrated in an industrially relevant environment.
Proposals should include activities aiming at facilitating future exploitation of results.
Consideration of circularity and recyclability, and compliance with the safe and sustainable by design framework should boost the confidence of industry and end-users and enhance the Innovative Advanced Materials ecosystem and uptake.
Where relevant, cooperation with activities funded under the Chips Joint Undertaking, the photonics partnership or other initiatives are encouraged.
Beneficiaries that intend to transfer ownership or grant an exclusive licence must formally notify the granting authority (i.e. DG-CNECT and HaDEA) before the intended transfer or licensing takes place and the granting authority may up to four years after the end of the action object to a transfer of ownership or the exclusive licensing of results.
This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership Innovative Advanced Materials for the EU (IAM4EU).
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Activities are expected to start at TRL 3 and achieve TRL 5-6 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.
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
Some users have encountered issues with the Detailed Budget Table (HE Lump sum). We have replaced now the template in the submission system with a version that does not create issues.
You are kindly asked to use this new version for the submission of your proposal.
We apologise for the inconvenience.
2026-10-08
If your lump sum budget contains any cost items in cost category C and/or D, please make sure to justify these items in the ‘Any comments’ sheet of the Excel detailed lump sum budget table.
The reason is that we simplified the proposal template, removing this information from Part B and bringing it closer to the relevant budget items.
Specifically, you must include justification in the ‘Any comments’ sheet if you are in any of the following situations:
- If the sum of the costs for ’travel and subsistence’, ‘equipment’, and ‘other goods, works and services’ (i.e. the purchase costs) exceeds 15% of the personnel costs for a participant. If this is the case, justify the most expensive cost item(s) up to the level that the remaining costs are below 15% of personnel costs.
- If other cost categories (e.g. internally invoiced goods and services) are used.
- If in-kind contributions are used (non-financial resources made available free of charge by third parties, which must be included as direct costs in the corresponding cost category, e.g. personnel costs or purchase costs for equipment).
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
