SUPPORT TO THE EUROPEAN FRMCS DEPLOYMENT GROUP

Closed

Code: 38513 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-JU-ER-2025-EXPLR-04 | Programme name: 24432 | Start submission calls: 30/10/2025 | End submission calls: 11/02/2026

The coordination and supporting actions of the project stemming from this topic shall deliver the following:

1. Programme Management Office (PMO) Functions
   • Set up and operate a central coordination function to oversee timelines, dependencies, and progress across planning of FRMCS future deployment activities.
2. Capacity Mapping & Planning Analysis
   • Develop and distribute sector-wide surveys (by sending out questionnaires) to gather data on deployment plans, readiness, and capacity. Analyse responses and identify gaps and challenges across Member States and cross-border situations.
3. Independent Cost and Time Driver Study
   • Conduct a study to assess cost structures and investment drivers relevant to FRMCS implementation across different operational contexts (in particular on-board assets).
   • Conduct relevant Cost Business Analyses.. Analyse main factors that determine the required rollout timeline and measures to optimise those.
4. Stakeholder Management
   • Facilitate cooperation among rail and telecom stakeholders, as well as with relevant associations.
5. Communication & Dissemination
   • Support targeted communications for the FRMCS Deployment Group and Organise outreach and engagement with the broader sector to raise awareness and share developments.
6. Deployment Guidelines Toolbox
   • Support the development a non-binding set of practical guidelines and migration scenarios to support railway undertakings and infrastructure managers in their transition to FRMCS.
7. Expertise & Technical Support
   • Provide subject-matter expertise on key domains including, but not exclusive: System authorisation, Cybersecurity, RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety)
8. European Deployment Dashboard
   • Support the establishment and maintenance an online dashboard to: Report on deployment readiness and progress and rack national initiatives and alignment with European goals
9. Knowledge Sharing and Acceleration
   • Gather and share test results, best practices, and lessons learned and promote early implementation and innovation in FRMCS assets.
10. Risk & Deviation Management
    • Support the development of frameworks for identifying, reporting, and mitigating risks and deviations across the deployment chain.
11. Develop market readiness
    • Support the identification of measures needed to be address by the market for ensure a swift FRMCS deployment. This activity should be framed in the context of the anticipated short time frame to conduct the migration from GSM-R to FRMCS that may lead to a high demand on scarce resources in different fields.

EXTENDING THE RAIL NETWORK OF PHDS

Closed

Code: 38509 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-JU-ER-2025-EXPLR-03 | Programme name: 24432 | Start submission calls: 30/10/2025 | End submission calls: 11/02/2026

In order to achieve the expected outcomes described above, proposals shall consist of the creation of at least 3 – 5 PhDs positions. It is expected that the PhD programmes stemming from this topic will have the possibility to interact with the Funding Members of the Europe’s Rail JU.

The PhD researchers are expected regularly to liaise with the Europe’s Rail JU and to present their research findings to the Europe’s Rail JU events and submit scientific papers to relevant conferences (e.g. TRA, WCRR, etc. but also non-rail related).

STUDIES ON INNOVATION IN CLIMATE FINANCE FOR RAIL

Closed

Code: 38506 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-JU-ER-2025-EXPLR-02 | Programme name: 24432 | Start submission calls: 30/10/2025 | End submission calls: 11/02/2026

The study should aim to provide actionable recommendations to help railways to access the growing pool of climate finance to support their transition to low-carbon, climate-resilient transport system , and can include the following:

• Conducting a comprehensive review of existing green financing instruments and their applicability to the rail sector, identifying key barriers and opportunities for increased uptake.
• Analysing the investment criteria and processes, and identifying strategies for an increased utilization of carbon credits by rail companies, as means to offset emissions, generate revenue, etc. This includes the investigation of innovative approaches to aggregate and scale up smaller rail initiatives, to meet minimum investment thresholds for climate finance. Explore the possibility of innovative financing structures as well that blend public, private and climate-specific funding sources to maximize investment in low-carbon rail infrastructure and operations. The study shall provide actionable and data-driven recommendations for the rail industry, to assist them in their decision making towards identification and implementation of decarbonization strategies capturing sustainable finance opportunities.
• Providing guidelines/recommendations for harmonising processes for monitoring, reporting and evaluation across European rail companies of accurate gas emissions measurements. The aim of these is to enable the progress towards achieving the decarbonization goals, while providing clear, easy to follow instructions regarding: regulatory requirements; access to financing channels; integration of climate-related considerations into corporate strategy and operations.
• Investigating the contribution and opportunities of climate finance instruments in enabling the transition towards rail passenger and freight transport from other less green transport modes, as a key step in achieving the EU green deal objectives. Provide recommendation for bridging the gaps in terms of policies, regulations, and incentives fostering the investments and use of low-carbon transport modes and in particular for rail fostering the market take-up of novel technologies and solutions into the existing European rail network and systems.

Gender dimension

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.

Data Space for Manufacturing

Closed

Code: 38508 | Identifier Code: DIGITAL-2026-DSM-AI-09-DS-MANUFACTUR-STEP | Programme name: 15593 | Start submission calls: 04/11/2025 | End submission calls: 03/03/2026

This initiative will support up to three data-collection projects, with around 3 million co-funding from Digital Europe each, focused on manufacturing use cases to unlock advanced AI models, for example, predictive maintenance, process automation, supply chain management, product design and development and sustainability in production, and increase productivity in industrial environments such as purchases, logistics, resource planning and production halls. These projects aim to collect massive, high-quality data from real industrial environments, ensuring proper labelling where relevant, that could be used to train or finetune generative AI models for the manufacturing sector. The data collection has to be relevant for developing AI applications that can significantly benefit major EU manufacturing sectors (such as automotive, chemical, aeronautics and energy-intensive industries). The project proposal has to clearly identify the target sectors, the stakeholders, and have preliminary agreements about the intended data exchange.

STUDIES ON RAIL INDUSTRY 5.0

Closed

Code: 38503 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-JU-ER-2025-EXPLR-01 | Programme name: 24432 | Start submission calls: 30/10/2025 | End submission calls: 11/02/2026

European Commission’s Industry 5.0 Award provides a vision of the future of European industry taking into consideration the achievement of ‘societal goals beyond jobs and growth. Industry 5.0 is seen “as transition to a sustainable, people-centric and resilient European industry”^[1].

The expected outcome of this Research and Innovation Action is a study that identifies the key challenges, drivers, and expected measurable outcomes/benefits related to the application of the new concepts introduced by the 5.0 Industry principles to the rail sector.

The study shall provide recommendations for the implementation of Industry 5.0 vision that will lead to a significant improvement of safety, reliability, and efficiency in rail operations.

CAPACITY BUILDING CAP2B

Closed

Code: 38500 | Identifier Code: I3-2026-CAP2B | Programme name: 16401 | Start submission calls: 23/10/2025 | End submission calls: 19/03/2026

General objective

The overall objective of the I3 Strand 2b is to build capacity in less developed regions to develop and strengthen their regional innovation ecosystems and value chains through coordinated and interlinked investments in several regions.

This call for proposals aims to improve the capacity of public authorities and innovation intermediaries (e.g. clusters to support companies in the identification of investment portfolios at an interregional scale

The purpose of this activity is to build capacities for a successful participation in Strand 1 or Strand 2a calls, enhancing interregional cooperation with a view to identifying and sharing good practices, deriving actionable policy recommendations, strengthening institutional capacities, and experimenting new approaches. This will also help public authorities and agencies to design evidence-based and targeted policy interventions in the long-term, including updates to regional Smart Specialisation Strategies and related innovation policy frameworks.

 

Perform EU

Closed

Code: 38496 | Identifier Code: CREA-CULT-2026-PERFORM-EU | Programme name: 3948 | Sub-program: Culture | Start submission calls: 30/10/2025 | End submission calls: 15/01/2026

The specific objective of this action is to test and implement innovative models through changemaker projects, to rethink touring in the performing arts in a more sustainable, inclusive, diverse and balanced way.

This action addresses applicants that are active in the performing arts sector and have a high sectorial, sub-sectorial representativity and geographical coverage.

EIC Accelerator 2026 – Short application

Closed

Code: 38494 | Identifier Code: HORIZON-EIC-2026-ACCELERATOR-01 | Programme name: 2939 | Sub-program: European Innovation Council-EIC (2021-2027) | Start submission calls: 06/11/2025 | End submission calls: 17/12/2025

The EIC Accelerator supports companies (principally SMEs, including start-ups) to scale up high impact innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones. The EIC Accelerator focuses in particular on innovations, building on scientific discovery or technological breakthroughs (‘deep tech’) and where significant funding is needed over a long timeframe before returns can be generated (‘patient capital’).

The EIC Accelerator supports the later stages of technology development as well as scale up. The technology component of your innovation must therefore have been tested and validated in a laboratory or other relevant environment (e.g. at least TRL 5). The EIC Accelerator looks to support companies where the EIC support will act as a catalyst to crowd in other investors necessary for the scale up of the innovation.

 

Large scale not-for-profit European sport event

Closed

Code: 38492 | Identifier Code: ERASMUS-SPORT-2026-LSSNCESE | Programme name: 2918 | Sub-program: Key Action 2 (KA2) – Cooperation among organisations and institutions | Start submission calls: 13/11/2025 | End submission calls: 22/01/2026

This Action aims to support the organisation of sport events with a European dimension in the following fields:

• Volunteering in sport;
• Social inclusion through sport;
• Fight against discrimination in sport, including gender equality;
• Encouraging healthy lifestyles for all: projects under this priority will mainly focus on
  • a)the implementation of the three pillars of the HealthyLifestyle4All initiative,
  • b) the implementation of the Council Recommendation on health-enhancing physical activity and the EU Physical Activity Guidelines,
  • c) the support to the implementation of the European Week of Sport,
  • d) the promotion of sport and physical activity as a tool for health,
  • e) the promotion of all activities encouraging the practice of sport and physical activity,
  • f) promotion of traditional sport and games.

Public Sector Loan Facility

Closed

Code: 38487 | Identifier Code: JTM-2026-PSLF | Programme name: 23747 | Start submission calls: 23/10/2025 | End submission calls: 27/01/2026

This topic targets projects linked to a framework loan to address serious social, economic and environmental challenges deriving from the transition towards the EU’s 2030 climate and energy targets and the EU’s 2050 objective of climate neutrality, for the benefit of the EU territories identified in the Territorial Just Transition Plans.

– The projects must be linked to an EIB framework loan. Framework loans by other banks or EIB financial intermediaries (including EIB Intermediated Framework Loans or Multi-Beneficiary Intermediated Loans) cannot benefit from PSLF funding under this topic.

This Call has the following topics:

• JTM-2026-PSLF-STANDALONE-PROJECTS
• JTM-2026-PSLF-FRAMEWORK-LOANS

NEWS – Media Literacy

Closed

Code: 38484 | Identifier Code: CREA-CROSS-2026-MEDIALITERACY | Programme name: 15593 | Sub-program: Cross-sectoral strand | Start submission calls: 23/10/2025 | End submission calls: 11/03/2026

The call will support innovative cross-border media literacy projects and practices across Europe among various population segments, addressing the challenges of a continuously changing digital media landscape.

Support for information measures relating to the common agricultural policy (IMCAP)

Closed

Code: 38480 | Identifier Code: IMCAP-2026-INFOME | Programme name: 16396 | Start submission calls: 07/10/2025 | End submission calls: 14/01/2026

The general objective of the call is to raise awareness about the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) within the EU, amongst all citizens, farmers and non-farmers alike and to disseminate information about the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the key messaging should be fully consistent with the Commission’s legal requirement to carry out information measures on the CAP within the meaning of Article 46 of Regulation (EU) 2021/2116.

The measures should help citizens understand the CAP, about how the CAP responds to challenges faced by agriculture and food producers, helps restore consumer confidence following crises, supports development in rural areas and promotes a more competitive, sustainable and resilient Union model of agriculture, including its simplification agenda.