HORIZON EUROPE – EIC STEP Scale Up Defence – 2026

Some Horizon Europe budgets are structured in response to policy ambitions (“destinations”) and deployed through calls for proposals targeting more specific thematic/sector (“Topics”). Thus, your application must be linked to a topic of a call for proposals

Various categories of projects are eligible:

• RIA, Research and Innovation Actions: Basic and applied research / Technology development and adoption / Testing and validation of a prototype in the laboratory
• IA, Innovation Actions: Prototypes, tests, demonstrations, pilot projects, market placement. These actions may include limited R&D activities
• CSA, Coordination and Support Actions: Networking, studies & conferences, communication, studies for new research infrastructures
• MSCA, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions / ERC individual grants: Training networks for researchers, Individual grants for experienced researchers, Staff exchange – mobility for researchers and non-scientific staff

In addition, calls specify the categories of eligible beneficiaries:

• Collaborative projects, composed of a coordinator and several partners organisations (consortium)
• Single-beneficiary projects, involving a single organization
• Individual scholarships, open to natural persons in their own name with their home institution

Topic

Open

• HORIZON-EIC-2026-DEFENCE-01 : EIC defence call

Additional information

• To find your National Contact Point (NCP): Click here

Useful

• Guidelines : Click here
• Other call documents: Click here
• European Innovation Council  website: Click here
• More information: Click here

• Total call budget: 100 million euros

The support will be in the form of equity-only investments managed by the EIC Fund.

• Amount of the investment: between 10 million euros and 30 million euros