The European Commission has injected an additional €500 million into its flagship research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe, taking its total allocation for 2026 and 2027 to approximately €14.8 billion.

The mid-term cash boost, announced on Tuesday, introduces two new cross-cutting funding calls designed to accelerate Europe’s transition towards a nature-positive economy and lay the groundwork for the EU’s next long-term funding framework.

Among the priority areas earmarked for support are AI-driven platforms for secure energy systems, skills development for innovative small enterprises, and advanced scaling frameworks under the New European Bauhaus initiative.

The first new horizontal strand, Transformative Change Towards a Nature-Positive Economy and Society, has been allocated €237 million to fund 11 research actions. These projects aim to support European biodiversity targets, contributing directly to broader climate and ocean resilience strategies, including the EU Clean Industrial Deal and the Water Resilience Strategy.

A second strand, Bridging Actions 2027, will receive €260 million across 16 actions. Intended to bridge the gap between Horizon Europe and the upcoming 2028–2034 funding cycle, the call introduces an ‘innovation to investment’ pipeline to push high-potential research into commercial deployment. Key focus areas include an EU AI Media Platform to build modular, multilingual public-interest infrastructure for European news and audiovisual sectors, as well as talent retention initiatives to encourage leading researchers to remain in Europe.

Accompanying monitoring reports released by the Commission highlight the programme’s continued pull for global research talent. Since its launch in 2021, Horizon Europe has directed €61 billion in grants and €1.3 billion in equity across nearly 23,000 projects, engaging over 34,000 organisations—more than half of which are first-time participants.