Grand Challenge on Quantum Sensors for Inertial Navigation - CANCELLED

General conditions

1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout

Described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes.

Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System.

2. Eligible Countries

Described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.

A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.

3. Other Eligible Conditions

In order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, and security, it is important to avoid a situation of technological dependency on a non-EU source, in a global context that requires the EU to take action to build on its strengths, and to carefully assess and address any strategic weaknesses, vulnerabilities and high-risk dependencies which put at risk the attainment of its ambitions. For this reason, participation is limited to legal entities established in Member States, Iceland and Norway and the following additional associated countries: Canada, Israel, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. In addition, entities established in third countries which may become associated to Horizon Europe during 2026 and 2027 may be eligible to participate in this topic if the third country is identified for this topic as an eligible country in the List of Participating Countries in Horizon Europe at the time of submission of the application[[See the List of Participating Countries in Horizon Europe available at https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/common/guidance/list-3rd-country-participation_horizon-euratom_en.pdf.]]. In any case, the association agreement to the Programme must apply by the time of the signature of the grant agreement.

For the duly justified and exceptional reasons listed in the paragraph above, in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, entities established in an eligible country listed above, but which are directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity, may not participate in the action unless it can be demonstrated, by means of guarantees positively assessed by their eligible country of establishment, that their participation to the action would not negatively impact the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security. Entities assessed as high-risk suppliers of mobile network communication equipment within the meaning of ‘restrictions for the protection of European communication networks’ (or entities fully or partially owned or controlled by a high-risk supplier) cannot submit guarantees.[[ The guarantees shall in particular substantiate that, for the purpose of the action, measures are in place to ensure that: a) control over the applicant legal entity is not exercised in a manner that retrains or restricts its ability to carry out the action and to deliver results, that imposes restrictions concerning its infrastructure, facilities, assets, resources, intellectual property or know-how needed for the purpose of the action, or that undermines its capabilities and standards necessary to carry out the action; b) access by a non-eligible country or by a non-eligible country entity to sensitive information relating to the action is prevented; and the employees or other persons involved in the action have a national security clearance issued by an eligible country, where appropriate; c) ownership of the intellectual property arising from, and the results of, the action remain within the recipient during and after completion of the action, are not subject to control or restrictions by non-eligible countries or non-eligible country entity, and are not exported outside the eligible countries, nor is access to them from outside the eligible countries granted, without the approval of the eligible country in which the legal entity is established.]]

The following additional eligibility criteria apply: Proposals must be submitted by a single legal entity (mono-beneficiary CSA) wich is an SME.

Described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion

Described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes.

5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds

are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes.

5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes

The following additions to the general award criteria aspects apply:

• Excellence: credibility of the technical approach for road-mapping and benchmarking; adequacy of performance metrics and methodology (e.g. drift rate, SWaP-C, environmental resilience) and early end-user engagement to define requirements.
• Impact: enhancing the EU stance around quantum inertial navigation from different angles[[https://qt.eu/media/pdf/Strategic-Reseach-and-Industry-Agenda-2030.pdf]]; expected contribution to EU technological sovereignty (including mitigation of non-EU supply-chain dependencies) and to societal, industrial and economic benefits; credibility of the path to commercialisation and investor-readiness.
• Quality and efficiency of the implementation: credibility of the work plan, resources and risk management for a mono-beneficiary CSA; capacity to deliver the specified outputs (technical & financial roadmap, validation/benchmarking reports, viability assessment); appropriateness of the team and access to facilities for validation/benchmarking of existing prototypes.

are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual.

5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement

Described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes.

6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants

Described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes.

Specific conditions

Described in the [specific topic of the Work Programme]

Application and evaluation forms and model grant agreement (MGA):

Application form templates — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System

Standard application form (HE CSA)

Please note that the application form has been customised for this topic to include the additions to the standard evaluation criteria. Please make sure that you use the customised form available in the Submission System for this topic, and not the standard one.

Evaluation form templates — will be used with the necessary adaptations

Standard evaluation form (HE CSA)

Please note that the evaluation form has been customised for this topic to include the additions to the standard evaluation criteria. The customised evaluation form will be made available to the evaluators.

Guidance

HE Programme Guide

Model Grant Agreements (MGA)

HE MGA 

Call-specific instructions 

Ownership Control Declaration Annex

Additional documents:

HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 1. General Introduction

HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 7. Digital, Industry and Space

HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 15. General Annexes

HE Programme Guide

HE Framework Programme 2021/695

HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764

EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509

Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment

EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement

Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual

Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions 

Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement

Guidance on participation in EU calls with ownership and control restrictions