On this page · 18 sections→
Overview
El Cluster 5 es el motor de clima, energía y movilidad del segundo pilar de Horizon Europe, la parte del programa que financia grandes consorcios de investigación transfronterizos en lugar de empresas individuales. Paga proyectos colaborativos en nueve temas: ciencia del clima, suministro de energía, sistemas y redes energéticas, edificios e industria, comunidades y ciudades, competitividad del transporte, movilidad limpia y accesible, movilidad inteligente y almacenamiento de energía. Las subvenciones se conceden como Acciones de Investigación e Innovación (RIA: investigación en fase más temprana, financiada al 100 % de los costes elegibles) y Acciones de Innovación (IA: demostración más cercana al mercado, financiada al 70 %, o al 100 % para entidades sin ánimo de lucro). La Comisión Europea adoptó el programa de trabajo 2026-2027 el 11 de diciembre de 2025; del importe que destina al Cluster 5, se estima que 1.644 millones de euros se clasifican como gasto relacionado con el clima, la mayor cuota climática de cualquier cluster de Horizon Europe. Las convocatorias de primavera de 2026 (466,7 millones de euros) cerraron en marzo-abril de 2026 y están en evaluación. En este momento hay dos convocatorias abiertas por valor de 486 millones de euros: 223 millones para energía y baterías (HORIZON-CL5-2026-09, fecha límite 15 de septiembre de 2026) y 263 millones para transporte y movilidad, incluido un tema de baterías de 100 millones (HORIZON-CL5-2026-10, fecha límite 8 de octubre de 2026). Las convocatorias de 2027 se abren entre noviembre y diciembre de 2026, con fechas límite en marzo-abril de 2027. Para presentarte necesitas un consorcio: al menos tres organizaciones independientes de tres países distintos de la UE o asociados, con al menos una con sede en un Estado miembro de la UE. Este no es dinero para fundadores; es dinero institucional para universidades, institutos de investigación, gran industria y pymes que trabajan juntos en problemas difíciles y de varios años.
Las cifras son aleccionadoras.
Is this for you?
- Consortium of ≥3 legal entities from 3 different EU or associated countries
- Universities, research organisations and companies of any size — startups join as partners
- Climate science, renewables, grids, batteries/storage, CCUS, zero-emission road, waterborne and aviation tech
- Your project fits a published topic text — calls are prescriptive, not open-subject
- Associated-country entities (UK, Norway, Switzerland, etc.) count toward the three
- Lone startup wanting non-dilutive solo cash → EIC Accelerator
- Single-team early breakthrough research → EIC Pathfinder or ERC
- Aviation or rail-specific R&D → Clean Aviation / Europe's Rail Joint Undertakings (own calls)
- Rolling out already-proven clean tech at commercial scale → Innovation Fund or LIFE
At least one of the three consortium members must be established in an EU member state; the other two can be in associated countries. Most funded consortia are far larger than the legal minimum — winning bids typically bundle industry, research institutes and end-users across many countries.
Call destinations
Sharpens the science that the entire green transition leans on: next-generation climate monitoring, sharper climate-risk assessment, climate economics, and even tackling climate disinformation. The 2026 climate-sciences call (HORIZON-CL5-2026-07) runs roughly €82 million across five topics, with individual topics in the €15-21 million range.
Research and innovation actions on climate modelling, monitoring and risk assessment
The horizontal destination, dominated in 2026-2027 by batteries: recycling, sustainable material processing and integrated lithium-battery production. Topic budgets here span a wide band, from roughly €9.4 million to €100 million depending on whether the topic is a research action or a large industrial demonstrator. Example topic: HORIZON-CL5-2026-03-D2-02.
Batteries, advanced materials and other cross-cutting enabling technologies
The largest single 2026 call (HORIZON-CL5-2026-03, around €176.7 million over 10 topics) sits here, funding renewable competitiveness, wind and solar innovation, grid resilience, energy storage and CO2 storage. Topic budgets run from roughly €9 million to €93 million. Example topic family: HORIZON-CL5-2026-03-D3-01 onward.
Renewables, grids, storage and carbon capture and storage
The demand side of the energy system: smart building performance, deep building renovation, carbon-lifecycle tools and industrial heat. Per-topic budgets cluster in the €15.75-28 million range. Example topic family: HORIZON-CL5-2026-09-D4-01 onward.
Energy efficiency in buildings and industry, and demand-side flexibility
Decarbonising the vehicles themselves across road, air and water: heavy-duty battery-electric trucks, energy-efficient EVs, aviation, ports and shipyards, and zero-carbon waterborne fuels. The 2026 transport call (HORIZON-CL5-2026-05) is around €138 million over six topics, with individual topics from roughly €2 million to €68 million.
Zero- and low-emission vehicles, aircraft and vessels
The systems layer: connected, cooperative and automated mobility (CCAM) demonstrations, multimodal freight and passenger transport, and road safety. Topic budgets range widely, from about €4 million to €100 million. Example topic family: HORIZON-CL5-2026-10-D6-01 onward.
Connected and automated mobility, multimodal logistics and road safety
Success rates — the honest picture
Roughly 1 in 5 applications gets funded. A sharp, evidence-backed proposal is what separates the funded from the rejected.
| Call | Deadline | Budget | Evaluated | Funded | Success rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CL5-2024-D3-01 (energy supply, 17 topics) | 16 Jan 2024 | €246M | 252 | 43 | ~17% |
| CL5-2024-D2-01 (cross-sectoral climate solutions) | 18 Apr 2024 | €92M | 117 | 19 | ~16% |
| CL5-2024-D4-01 (efficient energy use) | 18 Apr 2024 | €36M | 92 | 7 | ~8% |
Rates computed from CINEA's published call-closure counts (proposals evaluated vs projects selected); the Commission publishes no consolidated Cluster 5 success rate. Unlike the EIC Accelerator, collaborative Horizon calls have no resubmission cap — a rejected consortium can rework and re-apply to a later matching topic.
Eligibility
- 1Debes presentarte como un consorcio de al menos tres entidades jurídicas independientes, cada una establecida en un Estado miembro de la UE o país asociado a Horizon Europe distinto, con al menos una con sede en un Estado miembro de la UE (el mínimo estándar para los temas colaborativos RIA e IA).
- 2Las organizaciones elegibles incluyen universidades, organizaciones de investigación y tecnología, grandes empresas, pymes, organismos públicos, ciudades y ONG: el Cluster 5 es financiación institucional, no solo para fundadores.
- 3Las entidades jurídicas de países asociados participan en igualdad de condiciones con las entidades de la UE, salvo que un tema concreto lo restrinja; comprueba las condiciones de elegibilidad de cada tema en la página de la convocatoria.
- 4Las Acciones de Investigación e Innovación (RIA) financian investigación en fase más temprana y se reembolsan al 100 % de los costes elegibles; las Acciones de Innovación (IA) financian demostración más cercana al mercado y se reembolsan al 70 % (o al 100 % para entidades jurídicas sin ánimo de lucro).
- 5Las Acciones de Coordinación y Apoyo (CSA) —coordinación, networking, estudios— se financian al 100 %, pero no financian la investigación central en sí.
- 6Cada tema del programa de trabajo establece sus propias condiciones adicionales (actividades requeridas, impactos esperados y, a veces, un nivel de madurez tecnológica objetivo), por lo que el texto del tema en el portal de Financiación y Licitaciones es la fuente vinculante.
Standard Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) and Innovation Actions (IA) in Cluster 5 need at least three independent legal entities: one established in an EU Member State plus two others, each in a different Member State or associated country. The trap in the fine print: affiliated entities do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not count towards this minimum. Three subsidiaries of one group, or two partners plus an affiliate, fails eligibility outright. Only Coordination and Support Actions (CSA) can be submitted by a single entity.
The UK has been an associated country since 1 January 2024 and participates in Cluster 5 on equal terms, including as coordinator. Switzerland's position changed recently: the EU Programmes Agreement signed on 10 November 2025 associates it retroactively from 1 January 2025, so Swiss universities, SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and corporates are again directly fundable and may coordinate consortia in the 2026–2027 calls. Partners who drafted budgets assuming Swiss self-funding should rework them.
The adopted 2026–2027 Work Programme bars legal entities established in China from both RIAs and IAs under the batteries destination (e.g. the BATT4EU topics in calls HORIZON-CL5-2026-09 and -10). Stricter still: under the General Annex B 'restriction on control in innovation actions in critical technology areas', an entity registered in an eligible country but directly or indirectly controlled by China or by a Chinese legal entity is also ineligible — your EU-incorporated subsidiary does not launder the cap table. Chinese universities supervised by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology are excluded across the entire Work Programme.
Any non-public coordinator requesting €500,000 or more triggers a financial capacity check during grant preparation, based on audited accounts, balance sheet and profit-and-loss documents uploaded to the Participant Register. Evaluators also weigh dependency on EU funding and past deficits. A weak result can mean pre-financing paid in instalments or withheld entirely, a demand for joint-and-several liability of affiliated entities, forced replacement of the partner — or rejection of the whole proposal. Thinly capitalised startups should let a sturdier partner coordinate.
The evaluation result letter explicitly does not commit the Commission to fund you. Between invitation to grant preparation and signature sit legal entity validation, the financial capacity check, and the exclusion-grounds screen (EU administrative sanctions, insolvency, unpaid taxes and social security, professional misconduct). Separately, every proposal must include an ethics self-assessment; projects raising ethics issues undergo a formal ethics review that must clear before funding is authorised, and its conditions become binding deliverables in the grant agreement.
Cluster 5 projects must focus exclusively on civil applications. And a recurring topic-level condition: any project using satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation or timing data must use Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (the EU's own systems); commercial alternatives may only supplement them. Mobility and energy-infrastructure proposals built around third-country GNSS (global navigation satellite system) data alone are non-compliant.
Where you need to be
Your project should sit at TRL 3–8 when you apply. The eligible band is highlighted below.
- 1Basic principles observedThe underlying science is observed and reported — pure research, no application yet.
- 2Technology concept formulatedA practical application is imagined and a concept sketched, but nothing is built.
- 3Experimental proof of conceptFirst lab experiments show the core idea can actually work.
- 4Technology validated in labComponents are integrated and tested together in a controlled lab setting.
- 5Technology validated in relevant environmentThe technology is tested in conditions that start to resemble the real world.
- 6Technology demonstrated in relevant environmentA working prototype is demonstrated in a realistic operational environment.
- 7System prototype demonstration in operational environmentA near-final prototype is proven in the actual operating environment.
- 8System complete and qualifiedThe system is finished, qualified and ready through test and demonstration.
- 9Actual system proven in operational environmentThe technology is fully commercial and operating at scale in the real world.
The money — collaborative grants, no equity
Cluster 5 money is a pure grant: no dilution, no repayment. It is paid to the consortium coordinator, who redistributes it under the consortium agreement you sign among yourselves. On top of direct costs, every partner gets a flat 25% of direct costs for overheads — no receipts needed for that slice.
Read the topic's action type before budgeting. Research and Innovation Actions (RIA — lower-maturity research) reimburse 100% of eligible costs for all partners. Innovation Actions (IA — pilots and demonstrators closer to market) reimburse for-profit companies only 70%: you finance the remaining 30% yourself, while university and non-profit partners in the same project still get 100%.
A pre-financing payment lands shortly after the grant starts, but 5–8% of the maximum grant is diverted into the Mutual Insurance Mechanism — the programme's collective default fund — and only returned at project end. Interim payments follow each approved periodic report; the final slice is held back until the last report clears.
A growing number of topics use lump-sum grants: the budget is agreed per work package up front and paid when the work package is delivered, with no financial cost statements and no cost audits. Check the topic page — it tells you which model applies; you cannot choose.
How to apply — step by step
- 1Find a topic and build a consortium2-4 months to scope and recruit partners
Identify a specific call topic (e.g. HORIZON-CL5-2026-09, deadline 15 September 2026) on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal that matches your idea, then assemble a consortium. Most Cluster 5 calls are collaborative and require at least three independent legal entities from three different EU Member States or associated countries. You and each partner register an organisation (PIC number) in the portal; the Commission/CINEA does not score this stage but checks eligibility later.
- 2Write and submit the proposal (Part A + Part B)3-5 months to draft and coordinate
Through the portal's electronic submission system you submit Part A (structured administrative forms: participants, budget, declarations) and a Part B narrative limited to 45 pages, structured into three sections matching the award criteria. Submission must complete before the call deadline (e.g. 15 September 2026 for HORIZON-CL5-2026-09); late or over-length proposals are rejected without review. Single-stage calls take the full proposal up front; two-stage calls ask for a short concept first.
- 3Independent expert evaluation~5 months (Commission-run)pass rate Only proposals above the thresholds and within budget are funded; success rates are typically well below 20% in Cluster 5
At least three independent experts score the proposal remotely against Excellence, Impact, and Quality and efficiency of the implementation (0-5 each, half-marks allowed). A consensus discussion and Evaluation Summary Report follow, and proposals are ranked by total score (Impact weighted x1.5 for Innovation Actions). The evaluation phase lasts up to five months from the deadline.
- 4Grant agreement preparation and signature~3 months to signature
Successful applicants are invited to grant agreement preparation with CINEA/the Commission: confirming budget, beneficiary details, ethics and legal checks, and finalising the description of action. The grant agreement is normally signed within about three months of the invitation, after which the project and EU funding (typically €1.5-5 million per project) start.
What evaluators look for
Excellence
How sound, ambitious and credible the science and innovation are: clarity and pertinence of objectives, soundness of the methodology (including gender dimension and open science where relevant), and the extent the work is beyond the state of the art.
- Clarity and pertinence of objectives
- Soundness of the methodology
- Extent the work goes beyond the state of the art
Impact
Credibility of the pathways to the expected outcomes and impacts set in the work programme topic, the scale and significance of the project's contribution, and the quality of measures to maximise impact (dissemination, exploitation, communication).
- Credibility of pathways to expected outcomes and impacts
- Scale and significance of the contribution
- Quality of dissemination, exploitation and communication measures
Quality and efficiency of the implementation
Whether the project can actually be delivered: quality and effectiveness of the work plan (work packages, deliverables, milestones, risks), and the capacity and complementarity of the consortium and appropriateness of allocated resources.
- Quality and effectiveness of the work plan and risk management
- Capacity and role of each participant and appropriateness of resources allocated
Documents you'll need
The legal source for every Cluster 5 topic: scope, expected outcomes, budget, action type and deadlines. Read the exact topic text before writing a single line.
View documentThe live call page where you read topic conditions, download templates and submit. The HORIZON-CL5-2026-02 batch closed 17 February 2026; the next Cluster 5 cut-offs are HORIZON-CL5-2026-09 on 15 September 2026, HORIZON-CL5-2026-10 on 8 October 2026 and HORIZON-CL5-2026-11 on 1 December 2026.
View documentThe master reference covering eligibility, two-stage procedures, the three award criteria, thresholds and time-to-grant — the rulebook behind every call.
View documentThe exact Part B narrative structure (Excellence, Impact, Implementation) you must follow, with the 45-page limit. Write inside this skeleton.
View documentThe scoresheet experts actually fill in — read it to write directly to what evaluators score under each criterion.
View documentPlain-language walkthrough of the consortium requirement, submission, 5-month evaluation and 3-month grant signature timeline.
View documentTypical Budget Breakdown
2026 Deadlines
- 5 May 20265 May 2026HORIZON-CL5-2026-09 opened
Batteries and energy topics (incl. BATT4EU partnership); submission via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal.
- 4 Jun 20264 Jun 2026HORIZON-CL5-2026-10 opens
Batteries and mobility, incl. the €100m CCAM flagship pilot topic and next-generation lithium battery production.
- 15 Sep 202615 Sep 2026Deadline: HORIZON-CL5-2026-09
17:00:00 Brussels time, hard cut-off; the responsible Director-General may delay deadlines by up to two months, never advance them.
- 8 Oct 20268 Oct 2026Deadline: HORIZON-CL5-2026-10 + second-stage deadlines
Same day, stage-2 full proposals fall due for the two-stage calls CL5-2026-06 and -08 (stage-2 for CL5-2026-04 follows on 20 Oct 2026).
- 1 Dec 20261 Dec 2026Deadline: HORIZON-CL5-2026-11 (energy)
Final 2026 round; the call opens 4 Aug 2026. The first 2027 calls open from 17 Nov 2026.
- T+5 months after deadlineT+5 months after deadlineEvaluation result letters
Horizon Europe standard: outcome around 5 months from the deadline (around 3 months after a first-stage deadline). For the 8 Oct round that means roughly March 2027.
- T+5 to T+8 monthsT+5 to T+8 monthsGrant agreement preparation
Legal entity validation, financial capacity check (coordinators requesting ≥€500,000), exclusion screening and any ethics review conditions — an invitation here is not yet a funding commitment.
- T+8 months after deadlineT+8 months after deadlineGrant signature, then pre-financing
Signature targeted around 8 months from the deadline (~June 2027 for the October round). Pre-financing follows: normally 160% of the average EU funding per reporting period, minus the 5–8% levied for the Mutual Insurance Mechanism.
After you're funded
Most Cluster 5 grants are managed by CINEA, the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency. Your consortium gets an assigned project officer who approves reports, monitors deliverables and convenes periodic project reviews — a working relationship, not a one-off cheque.
You sign a grant agreement with the EU and a consortium agreement among partners. The consortium agreement governs who gets what money, who owns what intellectual property and what happens when a partner underdelivers — negotiate it as seriously as the grant itself.
Each reporting period ends with a combined technical and financial report submitted via the Funding & Tenders portal, plus the deliverables promised in your work plan. Interim payments are released only after the report is approved — slow reporting means slow cash.
In actual-cost grants, any beneficiary claiming over €430,000 in actual costs must submit a certificate on the financial statements from an independent auditor, and the Commission can audit your books for years after final payment. Lump-sum grants escape the cost audits but not the technical scrutiny.
Horizon Europe requires immediate open access to peer-reviewed publications and a data management plan following FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable). Budget real hours for this — it is a contractual obligation, not a nicety.
Practical notes
GREENET is the official network of Cluster 5 National Contact Points (19 partner organisations across the EU and associated countries). It runs the standing GREENET Partner Search Tool on b2match, which stays live for the whole programme through December 2027, plus the annual brokerage event tied to the Commission's Cluster 5 Info Day. Register your organisation and post a partner-search profile there rather than cold-emailing labs.
The Commission's Cluster 5 Info Day for the 2026 calls ran online on 15 January 2026, with the GREENET virtual brokerage event around it (pitching sessions plus pre-booked bilateral meetings). These events are where most consortia for a given year's calls actually crystallise; if you miss the window, the standing partner-search tool is the fallback but momentum is harder to find. Watch the Cluster 5 NCP portal for the next cycle's dates and book bilaterals before the meeting-request deadline.
NCPs (e.g. Enterprise Ireland for IE, RVO for NL, NCP Flanders, NCP Brussels) give no-cost guidance on eligibility, finding the right topic, and forming a consortium, and many offer to read a near-final draft and flag weaknesses before you submit. GREENET also publishes a short quick-start guide for newcomers and per-topic factsheets. There is no reason to submit a first-ever Cluster 5 proposal without having your national NCP look at it.
Several Cluster 5 calls are two-stage: Stage 1 is a short submission judged on idea strength, scope fit and consortium credibility, and only a small subset is invited to the full Stage 2. Documented stage-1 pass rates vary widely by topic (one batteries topic invited ~8% of submissions; a critical-elements topic invited ~31%), so check the topic's success odds, and at Stage 2 deliver a genuine qualitative step-change addressing the Stage-1 feedback rather than just more pages.
Who's been funded
Builds an interactive toolbox that fuses natural and social science to help Europe make better climate- and biodiversity-aware land-use decisions.
Gives citizens the tools and knowledge base to form renewable energy communities and trade as active players in the power market.
Develops open-access tools for siting and designing offshore wind farms across their whole lifecycle, tested in the North Sea.
Creates a shared framework and digital tools to speed up the design and validation of software-defined electric vehicles.
Uses gamified learning, AI and digital twins to make energy-saving behaviour accessible and human-centred for consumers.
Coaches a portfolio of ten renewable-energy technology developers to ready their projects for the EU Innovation Fund.
Key Features
Official links & resources
- Cluster 5 official page (European Commission)
- Funding & Tenders portal — find and submit to open calls
- Work Programme 2026–2027, Cluster 5 (full topic texts, PDF)
- CINEA — the agency managing Cluster 5 grants
- CINEA announcement: €466.7M in 2026 Cluster 5 calls
- Horizon Europe Programme Guide (rules, eligibility, funding rates)
- What do I need to know about EU funding — official quick guide (PDF)
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Los temas colaborativos estándar exigen un consorcio de al menos tres entidades jurídicas independientes de tres países distintos de la UE o asociados, con al menos una en un Estado miembro de la UE. Para financiación de una sola empresa, busca en el EIC Accelerator.
Una Acción de Investigación e Innovación (RIA) financia investigación en fase más temprana y se reembolsa al 100 % de los costes elegibles. Una Acción de Innovación (IA) financia demostración más cercana al mercado y se reembolsa al 70 % (100 % para entidades sin ánimo de lucro).
Depende del tema. Ahora mismo hay dos convocatorias del Cluster 5 abiertas por valor de 486 millones de euros —223 millones para energía y baterías y 263 millones para transporte y movilidad— con presupuestos por tema desde unos pocos millones de euros hasta 100 millones; las subvenciones por proyecto se fijan en el texto de cada tema y las grandes demostraciones suelen ser de varios millones de euros.
No. Los 1.644 millones de euros son el gasto estimado del Cluster 5 relacionado con el clima para 2026-2027, una cifra de seguimiento climático y la mayor cuota climática de cualquier cluster de Horizon Europe. El dinero realmente abierto en las convocatorias actuales es de 486 millones de euros (fechas límite 15 de septiembre y 8 de octubre de 2026); las convocatorias de primavera de 2026 (466,7 millones de euros) cerraron en marzo-abril de 2026.
La Comisión no publica una cifra oficial única solo para el Cluster 5, pero las tasas de éxito colaborativas del Pilar 2 suelen situarse en el rango del 10-20 %. Los temas en dos fases mejoran tus probabilidades en la etapa de nota conceptual, pero la probabilidad acumulada desde el concepto hasta la subvención sigue siendo modesta.
Para algunos temas, primero envías una breve nota conceptual. Solo las propuestas que superan la fase 1 son invitadas a escribir la propuesta completa de 40 páginas para la fase 2, ahorrando esfuerzo desperdiciado si tu idea no supera el primer corte.
Sí: las entidades de países asociados a Horizon Europe participan en igualdad de condiciones con las entidades de la UE, y algunos temas también permiten participantes de terceros países (aunque puede que no siempre reciban financiación). Comprueba las condiciones de elegibilidad de cada tema.
El corte más próximo es el 15 de septiembre de 2026 (17:00 de Bruselas) para la convocatoria abierta de energía y baterías (HORIZON-CL5-2026-09), seguido del 8 de octubre de 2026 para la convocatoria de transporte y movilidad (HORIZON-CL5-2026-10) y las fechas límite de la fase 2 de dos convocatorias en dos fases, y luego el 20 de octubre de 2026 para la tercera. Las convocatorias de 2027 se abren entre noviembre y diciembre de 2026.
Related Programmes
Horizon Cluster 4
€2M–5M per project
View programme →Horizon Cluster 6
Up to ~€15M per project
View programme →Innovation Fund
€1.8M to €216M per project
View programme →EIC Accelerator
Up to €12.5M blended (up to €30M equity-only via STEP Scale-Up)
View programme →STEP Platform
EIC STEP Scale Up: €10-30m per company (equity only); EIC STEP Defence Scale Up: €10-30m per company (equity only, deadline 28 Oct 2026)
View programme →Explore Further
Ask about Horizon Cluster 5
Get instant AI answers about Horizon Cluster 5 — eligibility, deadlines, tips, and more.