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SSH integration that isn't a token work package

Adding one social science partner and one "societal aspects" work package does not meet what Horizon Europe asks for under topics flagged for social sciences and humanities (SSH). The Programme Guide asks for SSH contributions that run through the whole project, and the Commission's monitoring reports admit that partner counts do not show whether this happens.

What the rules say

SSH integration means combining SSH research with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research in one project. The Horizon Europe Regulation (EU) 2021/695 states that SSH should be fully integrated across all clusters of Pillar II, "Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness".

Topics where this is expected are "SSH-flagged". The Programme Guide (V5.1, 15 September 2025, Part 10) describes them as STEM-related topics that should be enhanced by SSH insights to reach their objectives. The Funding and Tenders Portal search can filter for them. Under these topics the guide asks applicants to ensure that:

  • SSH contributions are meaningfully integrated throughout the project,
  • participants with SSH expertise are fully embedded and contribute to core activities,
  • the SSH methods used are described,
  • if the consortium considers SSH not relevant to its proposal, it explains why.

On evaluation, the guide says experts first read the topic description to identify the expected SSH contributions, and that a proposal with insufficient integration of SSH research and competences will receive a lower score. Meaningful contributions may need several SSH disciplines.

What the monitoring reports found

Horizon 2020 (final report, covering 2014-2020). The Commission rated each project under SSH-flagged topics as none, weak, fair or good, using four criteria: share of SSH partners, share of budget, share of person-months, and at least two SSH disciplines. With a 10% threshold, 52% of 2,207 projects were rated good, 8% weak and 24% none. Health (Societal Challenge 1) had the lowest share of good integration, 30%. Economics, business and marketing accounted for 29% of SSH experts and political science, public administration and law for 23%, while history had 2%. The report also admits that under Horizon 2020 a low level of SSH integration in a proposal had no effect on its evaluation, and states that meaningful integration "cannot be limited to a box ticking exercise".

Horizon Europe (first report, published 2025, covering 2021-2023).

  • 480 of 1,203 Pillar II topics were SSH-flagged (40%), with 7.2 billion euro, 41% of the budget. The comparable Horizon 2020 budget share was 33%.
  • 88% of projects under flagged topics had at least one SSH partner (85% without Cluster 2), but SSH partners were 22% of all partners, and 17% without Cluster 2.
  • Cluster 1 (Health) had the lowest share of SSH partners, 12%.

The report states its own limit: the quality of integration was not measured, so it cannot say how much SSH partners contributed.

What the Commission recommends

From interviews with coordinators, the 2025 report names three strategies:

  1. A common language. Disciplines use the same terms differently, including between SSH fields.
  2. One clear project goal that every discipline can place its contribution under.
  3. Interdependency between work packages. SSH activities should not be treated in isolation, and all researchers should follow the whole project lifecycle.

The report also announces that flagging will become more selective, limited to topics where projects need SSH to reach the intended societal outcome, and that a final report is foreseen in 2028.

A quick test for your draft

These checks follow from the wording above and are not official criteria.

  • Can a technical WP finish without any output from the SSH tasks? If yes, there is no interdependency.
  • Do SSH partners lead or co-lead tasks in the core WPs, or only in communication and ethics?
  • Is the SSH method named (for example survey, ethnography, legal analysis) with the discipline behind it?
  • Is more than one SSH discipline involved where the topic text points to several dimensions?

Where to find flagged topics

Net4Society, the network of Cluster 2 National Contact Points, publishes "Opportunities for Researchers from the Social Sciences and Humanities in Horizon Europe". The edition for work programme 2026-2027 lists flagged topics as of January 2026, with keywords for the SSH expertise each needs.

Sources