Yesterday, the Commission adopted the second Horizon Europe strategic plan 2025-2027. The plan sets out the key strategic orientations for the EU's research and innovation funding for the last three years of the programme (2025-2027).

What novelties does the new strategic plan bring compared to the current 2021-2024 one?

• Turning the four key strategic orientations into overarching, interlinked and less prescriptive three key strategic orientations encapsulating the main EU policy priorities: green transition; digital transition; and a more resilient, competitive, inclusive and democratic Europe;

• Transforming ‘open strategic autonomy’ and ‘securing Europe’s leading role in developing and deploying critical technologies’ (in particular those identified in the list of critical technologies proposed by the Commission in the context of the European Economic Security Strategy) into overarching principles that apply across all three key strategic orientations;

• Simplifying the impact logic by removing the ‘impact areas’ to reduce complexity and focus on the expected impacts;

• Strengthening the coverage of Pillar I (‘Excellent Science’), Pillar III (‘Innovative Europe’) and the ‘Widening Participation and Strengthening the ERA’ part to ensure better consistency between all parts of Horizon Europe, while respecting their specific objectives; 

• Introducing new sections on specific issues, in particular synergies, balance between R&I and social innovation;

• Identifying the New European Bauhaus as a cross-cluster issue and its components for 2025-2027;

• Identifying nine new European Partnerships: five co-funded (Brain Health; Forests and Forestry for a Sustainable Future; Raw Materials for the Green and Digital Transition; Resilient Cultural Heritage; Social Transformations and Resilience) and four co-programmed (Innovative Materials for the EU; Solar Photovoltaics; Textiles of the Future; Virtual Worlds)

• Taking stock of the implementation of the five EU Missions and outlining the next steps to deploy these missions and ensure they are impactful, linking to strengthening and better coordinating administrative governance; broader portfolio of instruments; and broader public support and acceptance;

• Addressing the latest developments since the first strategic plan, particularly the new geopolitical situation and security concerns; 

• Adding a new section on research security to highlight the existing tools within Horizon Europe to mitigate risks related to research security. 

Read the Commission press release here and find the Horizon Europe strategic plan 2025-2027 here.

The strategic plan sets out the policy priorities for Horizon Europe, as well as expected impacts. It is the basis for the work programmes covering Pillar II of Horizon Europe and its call topics. One important aim of the strategic plan is to promote consistency between the work programmes, EU, and national priorities and to achieve continuity and coherence of funding measures beyond the (bi-)annual duration of work programmes. The first, current strategic plan covers the period 2021-2024.

The second strategic plan for 2025-2027 builds on an extensive analysis conducted by the Commission services, the Horizon Europe strategic plan 2025–2027 analysis. It was co-created by Commission services and co-designed with Member States and Associated Countries, the European Parliament and more than 2000 stakeholders and citizens, who have contributed at various stages of the strategic planning process for Horizon Europe, such as the largest ever public consultation on European Research and Innovation Framework Programmes, to which ERRIN also submitted input.

The new plan is an important milestone on the path towards the next European Framework Programme for R&I (FP10) - the process actively followed by ERRIN through dedicated work.