Pillar 2: Clusters – 6 thematic clusters

Pillar II is the largest part of Horizon Europe by budget, around €47.4bn, and it holds most of the consortium calls. It is divided into six thematic clusters.

The logic here is the opposite of the ERC: you do not propose the topic – the Commission states a challenge, and you argue that your consortium can meet it.

The six clusters

Cluster 1: Health (~€6.9bn) – from prevention and digital medicine to health systems.

Cluster 2: Culture, creativity and inclusive society (~€1.4bn) – the smallest by budget, but the only one open to the humanities, cultural institutions and social research.

Cluster 3: Civil security for society (~€1.3bn) – crime and terrorism, cybersecurity, borders, infrastructure resilience.

Cluster 4: Digital, industry and space (~€13.5bn) – one of the two largest: AI, advanced manufacturing, materials, space.

Cluster 5: Climate, energy and mobility (~€13.5bn) – the other one: decarbonisation, renewables, transport.

Cluster 6: Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment (~€9bn).

How to read a topic

A cluster is not the level you apply at. Clusters split into destinations, those into calls, and calls into topics. The topic determines everything: type of action and funding rate, expected outcomes, budget per project, consortium requirements and deadline.

Two topics in the same cluster can carry different types of action – and therefore different rates and rules. Decisions are made by reading the topic, not the cluster description.

What changed in 2026–2027

Topics are down by roughly a third and single-project topics halved. Half the call budget runs through lump sums. Some short proposals are assessed anonymously.

Horizontal calls also appeared, belonging to no cluster: research for the Clean Industrial Deal and an AI-in-science strand. If your topic is genuinely interdisciplinary, look there too.