Horizon Europe structure
Horizon Europe follows a global approach. It supports research and innovation from concept, fundamental research and applied research to market uptake. The programme focuses on three main pillars:
Pillar 1 – Excellent Science
The pillar focusing on excellent science builds on the successes of Horizon 2020 and reinforces the European Union’s scientific leadership and capacity, high-quality knowledge and skills development, through strengthening research infrastructures and the bottom-up European Research Council and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.
Pillar 2 – Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
This pillar takes forward the societal challenges and industrial technologies in a top-down directed approach. It addresses EU and global policy and competitiveness challenges and opportunities and is organised around six thematic clusters (Health; Culture, Creativity, and Inclusive Society; Civil Security for Society; Digital, Industry and Space; Climate, Energy and Mobility; Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment).
Pillar 2 also provides scientific evidence and technical support to EU policies, including through the activities of the Joint Research Centre, and opportunities to coordinate and facilitate research and innovation efforts.
Pillar 3 – Innovative Europe
This pillar boosts Europe’s innovation performance through three complementary parts:
1/ The European Innovation Council (EIC)
It provides a staged pathway for breakthrough and market‑creating innovation, spanning the full journey:
- from the EIC Pathfinder, which supports high‑risk early breakthrough research,
- through the EIC Transition for maturation/validation and market readiness,
- to the EIC Accelerator for commercialisation and scale‑up by start‑ups/SMEs via grant and/or investment.
This funding instrument suite is complemented by:
- the EIC STEP Scale Up for major equity‑only investments catalysing large strategic‑tech rounds
- the Advanced Innovation Challenges pilot, a demand‑driven, stage‑gated deep‑tech scheme with early user involvement where uptake is limited.
2/ The European Innovation Ecosystems (EIE)
It strengthens cooperation and connectivity among European, national, regional and local innovation actors to accelerate diffusion and cross‑border scaling
3/ The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)
It forges cross‑border partnerships linking business, research and education to build entrepreneurial talent and turn knowledge into market solutions.
Together, these funding schemes speed up knowledge transfer, strengthen scale‑up capacity and entrepreneurial skills, and reinforce Europe’s ability to turn scientific excellence into globally competitive enterprises.
The three pillars are underpinned by activities aimed at widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area. This includes, in particular, sharing excellence to fully exploit the potential in less research and innovation-performing countries so that they attain high Union standards of excellence; and reforming and enhancing the European research and innovation system.
The Horizon Europe pillar structure is complemented by partnerships and missions.
