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Home / Horizon Europe / HORIZON-JU-CBE-2026-IAFlag-04

Diversification of nutritional food ingredient sources for increased EU resilience and strategic autonomy

Open now · HORIZON JU Innovation Actions · HORIZON-JU-CBE-2026-IAFlag-04

Next cut-off
22 Sept '26
in 16 days
Per grant
€171M
the call's own average
Grants expected
1
projects that will be funded
Funding rate
70%
the rest is your own money

In context of Horizon Europe

This grant€171M
The track runs to the largest grant in Horizon Europe (€171M). The median across the 482 calls we publish is €5.3M, this one is above it.

What this call funds

Expected Outcome:

Successful proposals will contribute to the implementation of the EU initiative on Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing and the EU Life Sciences Strategy as well as the updated EU Bioeconomy Strategy, the upcoming EU Biotechnology Act and EU Circular Economy Act.

Projects’ results are expected to contribute to the following expected outcomes:

  • Full industrial scale biorefinery and related value chain(s) for the production of nutritional food ingredients.
  • Resilience and strategic autonomy of EU food sectors via diversification of nutritional food ingredient sources.
  • Increased environmental sustainability of food sectors (e.g. addressing issues like land use, water use, energy consumption, nitrogen cycle, other nutrients, etc.).
  • Improved consumers awareness and acceptance of nutritional food ingredients from alternative sources, contributing to sustainable healthy diets.

Scope:

Human nutrition is a key area where the bio-based industries can play an important role in addressing the present societal and climate challenges. Considerable attention is given to the utilisation of alternative sources of proteins, fibres and oils/fats, due to the increasing world population and the pressure on finite natural resources. Many sources for food ingredients, alternative to agricultural crops, exist and have been successfully piloted across the EU. However, efforts are needed to scale up sustainable processes to achieve adequate or even improved nutritional properties, ensure safety and consumers/end users acceptance, while achieving cost competitiveness.

Proposals under this topic should:

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

What applying costs you

ItemEstimateNote
Drafting effort6–8 weekssingle submission
Partner search4–8 weeksruns in parallel, and it is the part that slips
Your own money€73M30% of project cost, over the project's life
Time to first payment6–9 monthscut-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.

ConditionQuoted from the call, or the rule behind it
Consortium sizeNot quoted from this call — Innovation Actions under the Horizon Europe rules are at least three independent legal entities from three different Member States or Associated Countries, at least one established in a Member State.
Funding rateNot quoted from this call — Innovation Actions under the Horizon Europe rules are funded at 70% of eligible costs for profit-making organisations, and 100% for non-profit legal entities — the rate shown here is the one that applies to a company.
MaturityProposals under this topic should: • Demonstrate (at TRL 8) the efficient production of nutritional ingredients for food applications.

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