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HORIZON EUROPE TOPIC · Cluster 4 · Digital, Industry and Space

Apply AI: Challenge-Driven AI Innovation Booster in Apply AI prioritised sectors (RIA) (Partnership in AI, Data and Robotics)

HORIZON-CL4-2027-04-DIGITAL-EMERGING-04 — the expected outcomes as checkable statements, what evaluators look for in this topic, and the conditions that shape the proposal.

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ForthcomingRIADeadline 18 March 2027around EUR 14 million per project

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TopicHORIZON-CL4-2027-04-DIGITAL-EMERGING-04
StatusForthcoming
CallHORIZON-CL4-2027-04 — DIGITAL
DestinationAchieving open strategic autonomy in digital and emerging enabling technologies (2026-27)
Type of actionResearch and Innovation Actions
Opening17 November 2026
Deadline18 March 2027
Budgetaround EUR 14 million per project · 3 projects expected · EUR 42 million in total
TRL at the endTRL 5
Part B page limit40 pages (standard application form; check your call)
TemplateWork Programme 2026–2027 application form

Expected outcomes

Projects should contribute to all of the expected outcomes. The topic says: “The Apply AI Strategy proposes a comprehensive set of measures to notably harness the transformative potential of AI. It lays down targeted measures to boost AI use in key strategic sectors of the EU economy including healthcare, mobility and manufacturing for example. With challenges designed to spark breakthroughs in such strategic sectors, the current topic will directly support key…”

  1. EO1 Significant technological progress and innovation in Apply AI Strategy's prioritised sectors driven by challenge-oriented, AI-powered solutions.
  2. EO2 Increase competitiveness and visibility of the relevant AI community within key application sectors, and promote collaborative approaches for AI development in these sectors, fostering the ecosystem.
  3. EO3 Increase adoption of AI technologies across the following three key application sectors: healthcare, advanced manufacturing (including AI-powered robotics) and in-vehicle autonomous driving.

What evaluators will look for in this topic

Expected outcomes

  • Projects should contribute to all of the expected outcomes.
  • For each outcome (EO1 to EO3), name who will use or adopt your results (a specific group, not “industry” or “society”), how they get them, and the indicator that shows the change, with baseline, target and date.
  • Use the topic's own words for each outcome, so the evaluator can tick it off.

What the scope asks for

Evaluators check the proposal against these sentences of the scope. Answer each one visibly, in the call's own words.

  • “Each proposal should address exclusively on one of the three key sectors mentioned above, and clearly indicate which sector they address.”
  • “It is expected to focus primarily on the definition and organization of a multi-stage competition in the chosen sector, as well as on the accompanying support to the SMEs/teams taking part in each of the challenges.”
  • “User-industry companies from the strategic sector targeted by the proposal should be core partners in each consortium.”
  • “They should demonstrate a genuine interest in the project results and therefore support the challenge participants to reach the most powerful and exploitable results benefiting their industry.”
  • “The expected results are pre-competitive, but the proposal must include a draft exploitation plan focused on how the solutions developed by the third parties will be taken up, with support from the user-industry partners for their future exploitation.”
  • “This consortium should provide the necessary support resources during each stage of the competition (including technical assistance and business support to develop an exploitation strategy) and, most importantly, the consortium should ensure that the teams competing for and receiving financial support to third parties have access to relevant data to fine-tune models and build high-impact solutions meeting industry needs.”
  • “Proposals should be driven by impactful use-cases where advanced AI can make the difference: a number of industries from the targeted sector are expected to join forces to define challenging problems to solve with advanced AI solutions, which then drive the rest of the project.”
  • “Based on such challenges, each project consortium should organize a multi-staged competition with an increasing level of complexity.”
  • “Each solution is expected to be submitted either by a single SME, developer of advanced AI solutions, or a small team of organizations led by such SME.”
  • “The consortium should define measures to support the winners in maximizing the impact and uptake of their solutions.”
  • “Measures to support the broad uptake of their solutions in the whole sector should also be considered.”
  • “Such a multi-staged scheme is expected to be implemented in parallel by the projects funded under this action, each addressing a different sector.”

Conditions that shape the proposal

  • Part B, sections 1–3: 40 pages (standard application form). Text beyond the limit is not read; tables and figures count.
  • TRL: the topic expects TRL 5 by the end of the project. State where you start and the evidence for it.
  • Other Eligible Conditions: “In order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, and security, it is important to avoid a situation of technological dependency on a non-EU source, in a global context that requires the EU to take action to build on its strengths, and to carefully assess and…”
  • Other Eligible Conditions: “For the duly justified and exceptional reasons listed in the paragraph above, in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, entities established in an eligible country listed above, but which are directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or by a…”
  • Other Eligible Conditions: “[[ The guarantees shall in particular substantiate that, for the purpose of the action, measures are in place to ensure that: a) control over the applicant legal entity is not exercised in a manner that retrains or restricts its ability to carry out the action and to deliver results, that imposes restrictions…”
  • Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds: “To ensure a balanced portfolio covering different sectors, grants will be awarded to applications not only in order of ranking, but also to at least one proposal that is the highest ranked, within the healthcare, advanced manufacturing and in-vehicle autonomous driving sectors respectively, provided that the…”
  • Legal and financial set-up of the grants: “Beneficiaries must provide financial support to third parties. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants.”
  • Legal and financial set-up of the grants: “FSTP grants may be provided to either a single SME or to a small team of legal entities. Where provided to a small team, the coordinator (lead applicant) must be an SME and other recipients of financial support must be either an SME, a research organisation, and/or public body secondary or higher education…”

Impact pathway and traps

  • The scope expects pilots or demonstration. Name the sites, the partners who run them and what is measured there.
  • Keep outputs, outcomes and impacts apart: what you deliver, what changes when others use it, and the long-term effect.
  • Link your outcomes to the destination's expected impacts in the Work Programme. Destination impacts are long-term effects, not project deliverables.
  • Name the barriers outside the project (regulation, markets, user behaviour) that could block uptake, and what you will do if they do.
  • Section 2.3 (the summary canvas) is optional on this call; the old split into scientific, economic and societal impact is no longer required.
The scope, as published

The Challenge-Driven AI Innovation Booster aims to drive significant technological progress and innovation in Apply AI prioritised sectors through challenge-oriented, AI-powered solutions. This initiative seeks to boost Europe's developer community and the adoption of powerful, trustworthy AI solutions in three strategic sectors such as: In healthcare - advanced AI will accelerate diagnostics and treatment plans, enhance robotic surgery, or improve patient care through predictive analytics. In advanced manufacturing - advanced AI will optimize production processes, improve quality control and product design, or enable predictive maintenance. In autonomous driving - advanced AI will enhance vehicle safety, improve navigation systems, or optimize traffic management. Provided sufficient quality of the proposals received, at least one selected project will focus on in-vehicle autonomous driving applications, in line with the Automotive Action Plan, ensuring coordination with the announced Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Alliance. Each proposal should address exclusively on one of the three key sectors mentioned above, and clearly indicate which sector they address. It is expected to focus primarily on the definition and organization of a multi-stage competition in the chosen sector, as well as on the accompanying support to the SMEs/teams taking part in each of the challenges. User-industry companies from the strategic sector targeted by the proposal should be core partners in each consortium. They should demonstrate a genuine interest in the project results and therefore support the challenge participants to reach the most powerful and exploitable results benefiting their industry. The expected results are pre-competitive, but the proposal must include a draft exploitation plan focused on how the solutions developed by the third parties will be taken up, with support from the user-industry partners for their future exploitation. The consortium leading the project is responsible for the various stages of the challenges. This consortium should provide the necessary support resources during each stage of the competition (including technical assistance and business support to develop an exploitation strategy) and, most importantly, the consortium should ensure that the teams competing for and receiving financial support to third parties have access to relevant data to fine-tune models and build high-impact solutions meeting industry needs. Proposals should be driven by impactful use-cases where advanced AI can make the difference: a number of industries from the targeted sector are expected to join forces to define challenging problems to solve with advanced AI solutions, which then drive the rest of the project. Based on such challenges, each project consortium should organize a multi-staged competition with an increasing level of complexity. In the different stages (see below), third parties, either single SMEs or small teams of organisations led by an SME, compete to address the challenges with advanced AI solutions. For each proposal: Stage 1 - Open call: The consortium launches an open call for proposals. A challenge, open to all, will allow the selection for Stage 2 of the 10 highest-ranked proposals according to a pre-defined selection process and criteria. Each solution is expected to be submitted either by a single SME, developer of advanced AI solutions, or a small team of organizations led by such SME. Stage 2 - Competition among Stage 1 winners: The 10 teams or organisations selected from Stage 1 receive a EUR 300,000 FSTP grant each in accordance with their successfully selected proposal (which addresses the tasks and challenges defined for this stage by the consortium). At the end of Stage 2, the 4 highest-ranked solutions will be selected for the next stage according to a pre-defined selection process and criteria. Stage 3 – Grand finale (Competition among Stage 2 winners): The 4 teams or organisations selected from Stage 2 receive EUR 2,250,000 FSTP grants each in accordance with their successfully selected proposals to address the tasks and challenges for this stage. In conjunction, they will prepare for the grand finale that will identify the best performing solution at the end of Stage 3 according to the evaluation methodology defined by the consortium. The consortium should define measures to support the winners in maximizing the impact and uptake of their solutions. For instance, after the end of the FSTP grant, the best-performing team could be offered the opportunity to conclude partnerships or contracts with the user industries leading the consortium. Measures to support the broad uptake of their solutions in the whole sector should also be considered. Such a multi-staged scheme is expected to be implemented in parallel by the projects funded under this action, each addressing a different sector. Each proposal, involving several major industry players, should define a clear methodology to implement the various steps of the approach, define the specifications of the stages of the competitions, timelines, targets, KPIs, and propose a solid evaluation methodology including evaluation criteria. The main information should be in the proposal, in addition to all mandatory requirements as concerns financial support to third parties. The beneficiaries will also be in charge of implementing the evaluation methodology and providing the necessary infrastructure/technical support for the participants in the challenges. The consortium members are also responsible for ensuring high visibility of the competitions. The projects selected from this call, each addressing one of the three targeted sectors, are expected to collaborate among themselves to make economies of scale in sharing best practices, defining processes for organizing the challenges, ensuring efficient monitoring, organizing dissemination and communication activities, etc. Such collaboration among the linked actions is…

Technology readiness, as published

Activities are expected to start at TRL 2 and achieve TRL 5 by the end of the project – see General Annex B. COM(2025) 723 Apply AI Strategy

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Source and attribution

Topic text from the official topic page on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, retrieved 19 October 2026. © European Union, reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU (CC BY 4.0). Changes: the expected outcomes and impacts are split into numbered statements, long passages are shortened, and the evaluator checklist is GrantWise's own commentary. Your call and the Work Programme always win; check them before you submit. GrantWise is independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the European Commission.