Biotechnology for Healthy…, …INDERCHALLENGES-01-02

Biotechnology for Healthy Ageing

Open now · HORIZON EIC Grants · HORIZON-EIC-2026-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-02

Next cut-off

28 Oct '26

in 52 days

Per grant

€12M

the call's own average

Grants expected

projects that will be funded

Funding rate

not published, read the conditions

Expected Impact:

This Challenge looks to accelerate the development and uptake of clinically validated interventions that target the root cause of multiple age-related morbidities. It will:

Deliver biotechnology-based interventions for healthy ageing
Accelerate the implementation of personalised care in ageing based on molecular phenotyping
Provide recommendations for regulatory pathways addressing ageing as a target to inform developers, regulators, and other decision makers, and
Improve citizen literacy on longevity.

Expected Outcome:

Ambitious proposals put forward under this call will deliver:

Proof-of-concepts (TRL3 completed) of biotechnology-based or pharmaceutical interventions that prevents or delays the onset of, or reverts, an age-related disease in a vertebrate model system, based on the hallmarks of ageing, taking into consideration practical challenges of implementing such an intervention
Tools to facilitate development or adoption of the interventions above, such as proof-of-concept validation of biomarker signatures or suitable pre-clinical models, and
Approaches to address the shared regulatory hurdles and societal challenges linked to ageing-related interventions, thereby facilitating their adoption.

Portfolio approach

The portfolio of projects selected under this Challenge will ensure a coverage of projects developing interventions, biomarkers and NAMs, considering the following guidelines for portfolio composition:

Interventions: no more than 5 projects. The portfolio of selected projects should collectively address a variety molecular and cellular processes related to ageing, and a variety of different age-related diseases.

Trimmed here, the full scope, expected outcomes and award criteria are on the official topic page ↗.

What applying costs you

Item	Estimate	Note
Drafting effort	6–8 weeks	single submission
Partner search	4–8 weeks	runs in parallel, and it is the part that slips
Time to first payment	6–9 months	cut-off → evaluation → grant agreement

Item

Estimate

Note

Drafting effort

6–8 weeks

single submission

Partner search

4–8 weeks

runs in parallel, and it is the part that slips

Time to first payment

6–9 months

cut-off → evaluation → grant agreement

These are Bemzu's estimates from the call's structure (the number of stages and whether a consortium is required) not figures published by the Commission. Only the co-financing share is read from the call itself.

Where these conditions come from

Two kinds of row. Most are the sentence we read the condition from, quoted out of the call itself. Some say plainly that they are not a quotation but the programme's own rule for this type of action, the EU portal publishes a table of contents where the conditions should be, so for a Research and Innovation Action the rate comes from the rulebook rather than from the fiche.

Condition	Quoted from the call, or the rule behind it
Consortium size	Consortia of three or more entities must include as beneficiaries at least three legal entities, independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows: • at least one legal entity established in a Member State; and • at least two other independent legal entities, each es
Countries	Consortia of two entities must be comprised of independent legal entities from two different Member States or Associated Countries.
Maturity	Expected Outcome: Ambitious proposals put forward under this call will deliver: • Proof-of-concepts (TRL3 completed) of biotechnology-based or pharmaceutical interventions that prevents or delays the onset of, or reverts, an age-related disease in a vertebrate model system, based on the hallmarks of

Condition

Quoted from the call, or the rule behind it

Consortium size

Consortia of three or more entities must include as beneficiaries at least three legal entities, independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows: • at least one legal entity established in a Member State; and • at least two other independent legal entities, each es

Countries

Consortia of two entities must be comprised of independent legal entities from two different Member States or Associated Countries.

Maturity

Expected Outcome: Ambitious proposals put forward under this call will deliver: • Proof-of-concepts (TRL3 completed) of biotechnology-based or pharmaceutical interventions that prevents or delays the onset of, or reverts, an age-related disease in a vertebrate model system, based on the hallmarks of

Biotechnology for Healthy Ageing

In context of Horizon Europe

What this call funds

What applying costs you

Where these conditions come from

Also open in HE

Become the beneficiary.