Final agreement reached on Horizon Europe: €95.5 billion allocated

Following negotiations held between 10 and 11 November, the European Parliament and the Council reached a final agreement on Horizon Europe, the EU framework programme for research and innovation for the 2021-2027 period, which will replace the Horizon 2020 programme (2014-2020). The final agreement comes more than two years after the Commission's initial proposal in June 2018 and completes the institutional agreement of April 2019.

The final negotiation allocated a total budget of €95.5 billion in current prices to Horizon Europe, representing a 30% increase in resources compared to the Horizon 2020 financial envelope.

Specifically, €90.1 billion of the total budget will come from the common budget, while €5.4 billion will come from Next Generation EU, the European Covid-19 recovery package on which the European Council reached a political agreement just hours before the final decision on Horizon 2020 was taken. A further increase of €4.5 billion (current prices) is also planned.

The total financial envelope will be distributed among the 3 pillars (plus one) of the programme as follows:

Pillar 1 - Excellent Science: 24.9 billion;
Pillar 2 - Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness: 53.8 billion;
Pillar 3 - Innovative Europe: 13.4 billion;
Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area: 3.4 billion.

The largest share of the budget (56.3%) will therefore be allocated to Pillar 2 - Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness. In particular, the majority of this percentage will go towards funding the thematic clusters "Digital, Industry and Space" (15.5 billion) and "Climate, Energy, Mobility" (15.2 billion), which will therefore receive the highest allocation.

The agreement must now receive final approval from the European Parliament and the Council following the formal adoption of the overall EU budget for the next seven years. In any case, the formal launch of the Horizon Europe programme is scheduled for 1 January 2021.

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