New Horizon Europe Calls will open soon providing concrete funding opportunities for research and innovation projects that aim to address environmental challenges and advance climate actions.

The latest European funding programme for research and innovation has been launched earlier this year and will run until 2027. 35% of its total €95.5 billion budget will support projects that tackle climate change and advance the European Green Deal initiative.

Horizon Europe has been structured into six clusters including:

1. Health
2. Culture, Creativity & Inclusive Society
3. Civil Security for Society
4. Digital, Industry and Space
5. Climate, Energy and Mobility
6. Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

In today’s article, we will focus on Cluster 4 whose overarching goal is to shape competitive and trusted technologies for a strong, productive, and low-carbon European industry that benefits the society.

Digital for Planet has long-time expertise in EU-funded ICT research projects. Our team is ready to assist you in finding the best Horizon Europe Call and preparing a winning proposal. Learn more about Digital for Planet as your Horizon Europe partner of choice.

Empowering the SUSTAINABLE TRANSFORMATION in the Digital, Industry and Space domain

As pollution and environmental destruction continue to impact our lives, Horizon Europe Calls aim to support Europe’s green transition efforts to achieve sustainability and climate-neutrality by 2050. The European Commission has identified several impact areas where European Research can make a difference, the so-called Clusters. Under the Pillar II of Horizon Europe, Cluster 4 – Digital, Industry, and Space covers two main research areas: industrial research and innovation and space. The aim is to fund initiatives deploying trusted digital technologies for a European industry that respects and safeguards our planet.

The Calls within Cluster 4 focus on different R&I topics, many of which are critical to combating climate change and its adverse effects on our societies. The Digital for Planet team’s competencies in sustainable digital transformation paired with over two decades of experience in acquiring European funding gives us the best tools to support you in several Horizon Europe Cluster 4 Calls. Check the below selection of Open Calls that D4P specializes in.

horizon Europe open calls for green ICT

HORIZON-CL4-2022-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-06: ICT Innovation for Manufacturing Sustainability in SMEs (I4MS2)

• Budget: The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 30.00 million.
• Scope: ICT Innovation for Manufacturing SMEs (I4MS) aims to support manufacturing SMEs and mid-caps in adopting the latest innovative digital technologies for their business operations. I4MS2 builds on I4MS and addresses more significantly a sustainable and resilient production.

HORIZON-CL4-2021-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-07: Artificial Intelligence for sustainable, agile manufacturing

• Budget: The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 18.00 million.
• Scope: This topic focuses on manufacturing and process industries, addressing the entire lifecycle of products and services from design to remanufacturing and including all the aspects primarily relevant for industrial production. The objective is to exploit the potential of AI as a transformation tool to support circular production in the entire manufacturing and process industry, with due consideration for standardisation activities when relevant.

HORIZON-CL4-2021-RESILIENCE-01-01: Ensuring circularity of composite materials

• Budget: The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 24.70 million.
• Scope: The European composites market size was worth €16 billion in 2018 and is estimated to register an annual growth rate of 7.5% from 2020 to 2025 owing to increasing demand for lightweight materials in various energy-intensive value chains such as wind energy or transport. However, composites are difficult to reuse or recycle as available technologies such as high-temperature pyrolysis, and grinding (to be used as filler material) are either not environment friendly or economically unattractive. In addition, the environmental legislation on recycling end-of-life components and structures will mean that from 2025, for example, 80,000 tons of fibre reinforced polymer composites will have to be recycled every year in Europe. In this context, it is imperative that technologies are found to reuse and recycle these materials in a useful and sustainable manner.

HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01-02: Monitoring and supervising system for exploration and future exploitation activities in the deep sea

• Budget: The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 14.00 million.
• Scope: The global economic interest in deep-sea mineral resources has been growing and so are the concerns with the negative impacts on the deep-sea ecosystems if mining activities start. The expected increase of the global demand for metals needed for the energy transition might become a driver to initiate commercial deep-sea mining, paved by technological advancements. However, before any deep-sea mining activities start, the environmental impacts, and how to mitigate them, need to be well understood; a robust legal framework needs to be in place and a reliable and transparent monitoring and supervising system for the activities taking place in the deep-sea has to be ready.

HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01-04: Developing digital platforms for the small scale extractive industry

• Budget: The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 15.00 million.
• Scope: Actions should develop digital platforms that integrate Earth Observation data, in situ data, and data modeling, to improve data management and decision making during the extractive process. Proposals are encouraged to make use of but are not limited to, existing EU and Member States data infrastructures.

HORIZON-CL4-2021-RESILIENCE-01-08: Establishing EU led international community on safe- and sustainable-by-design materials to support embedding sustainability criteria over the life cycle of products and processes

• Budget: The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 4.00 million.
• Scope: Establish an inclusive and self-sustained international gender-balanced and inclusive network of experts and stakeholders in the materials community to enable multidisciplinary design processes, map skills mismatches and competence gaps, to enable the transition towards an overarching framework in which sustainability is the essential entry point into markets.

HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01-21: Leveraging Standardisation in Digital Technologies

• Budget: The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 4.50 million.
• Scope: This action will involve and empower European stakeholders participating in the development of open technical specifications and standards with the aim to represent European values and ethics, strengthen the take-up, scalability cross-border, and cross-sector interoperability of their technological solutions. The aim is to reinforce the presence of EU and associated states experts in the international ICT standardisation scene, by setting up an ICT standardisation observatory and a facility supporting the participation of key European specialists (especially from SMEs and Academia) in key international and global Standard Developing Organisations.

HORIZON-CL4-2021-RESILIENCE-01-26: Sustainable Industry Commons

• Budget: The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 6.00 million.
• Scope: To develop tools for industry to enhance efficiency and contribute to less waste and emissions while improving material/product/process quality all along the lifecycle of a product/service system. The proposals should have a holistic approach, with a minimum of three demonstrators/use-cases, covering the entire material/product/process life cycle and proving the interoperability of data across the life cycle stages across industry domains.

HORIZON-CL4-2021-SPACE-01-42: Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service evolution

• Budget: The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 7.50 million.
• Scope: The R&I, which needs to be addressed to tackle the above-expected outcomes are:
  • New and innovative data assimilation of atmospheric composition satellite observations to expand the use of satellite data streams in the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) operational global and regional production systems, to improve the quality of the CAMS global and regional reactive gases and aerosol information products.
  • New methods and measurements for quantifying uncertainties for atmospheric CAMS composition products in the context of decision-making as well as of environmental policies development and implementation to be directly useful for the users of the product.

More information on these Calls is available in the Digital, Industry and Space work programme. Contact us if you need support in navigating the Horizon Europe programme.

info days

Digital, Industry & Space Info Days will run from 29 November to 1 December 2021 with the aim to inform applicants about topics included in the Cluster 4 Digital, Industry and Space work programme of 2022. More information and programme are available here.