Open innovation: Addressing Grand challenges in AI (AI Data and Robotics Partnership) (CSA)
A human-centred and ethical development of digital and industrial technologies · HORIZON-CSA · TRL 2–5 · Needs partners
What this call funds
This call funds a single coordination project to design and run open innovation challenges and prize competitions in AI, focused on hard scientific problems like optimisation, explainability, robustness, natural language understanding and collaborative intelligence. At least half of the EU funding must be passed on as prize money (up to €500,000 per winning team) to academic and SME teams that crack these challenges. The goal is to attract top research talent, boost industry interest in AI, and share results openly across Europe.
artificial intelligence · machine learning · research excellence · deep tech
Who wins this
A consortium experienced in organizing large-scale scientific competitions or benchmarking initiatives in AI, able to mobilize academia, industry, SMEs and start-ups across Europe and manage cascading prize funding to third parties.
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The call in detail
- Indicative grant size
- €4M
- Funding model
- Budget-based — reimbursement of actual eligible costs
- Submission
- Single-stage submission (full proposal at once)
- Cut-off dates (2)
- 25 Aug 2026 · 8 Sep 2026
- Partners
- Required. The call asks for a consortium — a group applying together, typically 3+ organisations from 3+ countries.
- Support to third parties
- Financial support to third parties in the form of prizes only, minimum 50% of requested EU funding must go to third parties, max EUR 500,000 per third party; open to academia and SMEs in Member States or Associated Countries, excluding teams already funded under specific related topics.
- Also required
- Large industry and beneficiaries from specific related HORIZON topics (CL4-2023-HUMAN-01-01, CL4-2024-HUMAN-01-01, CL4-2024-HUMAN-01-02, CL4-2024-HUMAN-01-03) are not eligible for monetary prizes though they may participate in challenges.
- Sectors
- AI/ML · Deep Tech · Manufacturing · Aerospace
- Eligible countries (45)
- Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, United Kingdom, IL, TR, UA, RS, MK, ME, AL, BA, XK, GE, AM, MD, TN, NZ
Read the full conditions from the official call ›
General conditions General conditions 1. Admissibility conditions: described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System 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. If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used). 3. Other eligibility conditions: 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 Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties (FSTP). The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of prizes. The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 500.000 to address open innovation challenges on key important S&T challenges and drive general progress on important tasks through a common challenge/benchmark problem. FSTP should be eligible to third parties from academia and SMEs in Member States or Associated Countries, but exclude third parties that receive funding under ongoing projects of the following topics[[ Such teams will participate in the innovation challenges, and can receive rewards, but will not be eligible to receive prize money as they are already funded.]]: CL4-2023-HUMAN-01-01, CL4-2023-HUMAN-01-03, CL4-2024-HUMAN-01-01, CL4-2024-HUMAN-01-02. 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes Specific conditions 7. Specific conditions: described in the topic conditions
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Organisations that most often win this call family · 153 past winners