Topic

The topic identifier is the single most useful string in EU funding. It is unique, it appears on every official document about that call, and it is what you quote when you ask anyone a question. HORIZON-CL5-2026-D3-01-02 reads left to right as the programme, cluster 5, the year, destination 3, and the topic's position in that destination's list.

Each topic publishes its own expected outcomes, its scope, its indicative budget, and the figure that actually decides your odds: the number of grants the Commission expects to award. Divide the topic budget by that number and you have the expected contribution per project, usually a much better guide to how big your proposal should be than any advice you will be given.

The expected number of grants is not on the portal's headline view, which is why applicants routinely misjudge competition. A €20 million topic awarding two grants and a €20 million topic awarding twenty are different propositions, and the second is a different business entirely. Bemzu carries the number wherever the source states it, and says so plainly when it does not.

Read the expected outcomes before the scope. Scope tells you what you may propose; expected outcomes tell you what the Commission wants to be able to claim afterwards. A proposal that covers the scope and ignores the outcomes scores badly on Impact, which is the criterion most proposals lose on.

Topics also carry their own deviations from the standard rules: a different funding rate, a mandatory partner type, a required contribution to a specific mission, an obligation to join a cluster of sibling projects. Those exceptions sit in the topic text and override the general annexes. Skimming the topic and relying on the general rules is how a consortium discovers, in month two, that it was required to include a public authority.