How to read the Horizon Europe work programme

A Horizon Europe topic text is the visible part of a layered set of documents. The topic says what projects should lead to and how much money is available, the destination above it names the long-term impact the topic serves, and the General Annexes set out who may apply and how proposals are scored. Reading these layers in a fixed order prevents late surprises. This post uses the Work Programme 2026-2027 as online in October 2026.

What the work programme is

Work programmes set out the funding opportunities under Horizon Europe. The main Work Programme 2026-2027 is split into numbered parts: a General Introduction (part 1), thematic parts such as part 5 for Cluster 2 "Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society", and the General Annexes (part 15). The European Research Council, the European Innovation Council and the Joint Research Centre have separate work programmes. Each thematic part is built from destinations, calls and topics. A call is a group of topics that open for submission on the same date.

How a topic is built

Element	What it tells you
Topic identifier and title	The identifier shows the cluster, the call year and a destination keyword, for example HORIZON-CL2-2026-01-DEMOCRACY-01.
Specific conditions	Expected EU contribution per project, indicative budget of the topic, type of action, and any exception to the General Annexes, such as lump sum funding.
Expected outcome	The medium-term effects projects should contribute to, such as uptake or use of results by direct target groups.
Scope	The area of research and innovation to be tackled, without prescribing how.

The example topic above is a Research and Innovation Action with a total indicative budget of EUR 12.00 million and an expected EU contribution of EUR 3.50-4.00 million per project. A proposal may request a different amount. Costs take the form of a lump sum. The sentence introducing the outcomes asks projects to contribute to all five listed outcomes. The scope uses three different verbs: proposals "must" consider at least three intersecting factors, "should" do several other things, and "are encouraged" to do others.

Destination and strategic plan

Each destination describes the socio-economic challenges to be addressed and the expected impact. In Cluster 2, the destination text asks proposals to set out a credible pathway towards an expected impact taken from the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan. The second strategic plan, for 2025-2027, was adopted on 20 March 2024. It has three key strategic orientations and 32 expected impacts. The General Introduction states that the destinations of the 2026-2027 work programme together cover these 32 impacts.

Where the General Annexes fit

The General Annexes hold the rules that apply to every topic unless the topic says otherwise. Each call points to them annex by annex.

A: admissibility, including page limits. A full application is limited to 40 pages, 25 for Coordination and Support Actions, and 45 and 28 pages where lump sum funding is used. A first-stage application is limited to 10 pages.
B: eligibility, including the definitions of the types of action. A Research and Innovation Action (RIA) aims at new knowledge or feasibility, an Innovation Action (IA) at plans, designs, prototypes, pilots and demonstration, a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) at activities other than research.
D: award criteria, scores and thresholds.
C, E and F: capacity and exclusion, documents, evaluation procedure. Topic budgets are indicative (Annex F).
G: legal and financial set-up. Maximum funding rates are 100% for RIA and CSA and 70% for IA, with up to 100% for non-profit legal entities.

What changed in 2026-2027

The General Introduction lists simplification measures: shorter and less prescriptive topic descriptions, 33% fewer topics than in the Work Programme 2023-2024, 50% of the call budget implemented through lump sums, and 41 topics with two-stage evaluation.

A reading order

Specific conditions of the topic: type of action, budget, exceptions.
Expected outcomes, then scope.
The destination text and its expected impact.
The call overview table: opening date, deadline, indicative number of projects.
General Annexes A, B, D and F for the topic's type of action.
The Part B application form for that type of action.
The Horizon Europe Programme Guide for cross-cutting issues such as gender and open science. The version online in October 2026 is V5.1 of 15 September 2025, and its strategic plan chapter still describes the 2021-2024 plan.