Warwick Horizon Europe Seed Fund 2025-26

Route 1 aims to facilitate collaborations between Warwick academics and their counterparts based at institutions eligible for Horizon Europe funding in order to pump-prime one or more applications to Horizon Europe calls. The collaborators may be either known or unknown to the Warwick applicant at the time of the application provided the proposed collaborators are aware of and endorse the Seed Fund application.

Applicants must have concrete plans to apply to one or more Horizon Europe calls and the call(s) must be identified, giving the Call name and Call ID in the Seed Fund application.

Eligible calls

All calls from the following funding schemes are eligible for these purposes:

• MSCA;
• Research Infrastructures;
• Pillar 2;
• Pillar 3;
• WIDERA.

Additionally, the ERC Synergy Grant, the ERC Proof of Concept following on from an ERC Synergy Grant and the ERC Plus Grants are also eligible funding calls.

The Horizon Europe calls may be from either adopted (i.e. confirmed/ final) Work Programmes such as the 2025 Work ProgrammesLink opens in a new window or from draft Work Programmes, such as the 2026-27 Work ProgrammesLink opens in a new window. Please note the 2026-27 WPs are subject to change whilst still in draft form.

All applicants to the Seed Fund, including the Warwick applicant, must be eligible to apply to their selected Horizon Europe call(s).

Ineligible calls

The following calls are ineligible for these purposes:

• ERC Starting Grant;
• ERC Consolidator Grant;
• ERC Advanced Grant;
• ERC Proof of Concept Grant following on from an ERC Starting, Consolidator or Advanced Grant.

These calls support individual Principial Investigators and do not fund consortia, hence they are outside the scope of the Seed Fund.

Further requirements

Applicants under Route 1 should be able to justify as part of their Seed Fund application in what ways the award is going to pump-prime their application(s) to the identified Horizon Europe call(s). Applications to the latter call(s) should then include all of the Seed Fund collaborator(s).

Route 2 aims to facilitate the in-person attendance of Warwick applicants at Brokerage Events which have the primary aim of identifying partners to apply with jointly to Horizon Europe calls listed under the 'Eligible calls' under 'Route 1: Collaborations' (see tab above).

Examples of eligible Brokerage Events include those organised by the European Commission for each of the six Clusters under Pillar 2; WIDERA; Research Infrastructures and MSCA. These events may be found on the European Commission Horizon Europe Info Days webpageLink opens in a new window (under Upcoming Info Days). The Info Days are eligible for funding to attend in-person as long as they also include one or more Brokerage Events the applicant(s) intend to attend. The applicant(s) main purpose for attending should be to make connections to apply jointly to one or more of the topics/calls for discussion at the Brokerage Event(s).

The Innovate-UK organised Horizon Europe Brokerage Visits 2025/26Link opens in a new window are also eligible for this purpose provided the application demonstrates no funding from Innovate UK is available (Innovate UK already funds costs for in-person attendance for one representative from each organisation).

Other Brokerage Events where the applicant(s)' primary purpose for attending is to make connections to jointly apply with to an eligible Horizon Europe Cluster/topic/call (see the 'Eligible calls' under 'Route 1: Collaborations') may also be eligible as long as the targeted Horizon Europe Cluster/topic/call is clear from the event description. The eligibility of such events will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. The Seed Fund application should specify in as much detail as possible the Horizon Europe Cluster/ topic/ call the event will lead to applying to.

Other events like meetings, conferences, seminars, workshops, general networking are ineligible under this Route.

Prospective attendees at Brokerage Events may consider applying to Horizon Europe calls in either a coordinator or a (EU-funded) consortium member capacity.

The in-person attendance of attendees from other institutions/ organisations may also be funded provided that the application demonstrates all of the below:

1. No alternative funding is available for their attendance from other sources;
2. There are concrete plans for their participation in the follow-on Horizon Europe proposal;
3. Their attendance is necessary at the Brokerage Event(s).

Route 3 provides funding to commission consultancy services to develop Horizon Europe proposal(s). As with Route 1, applicants must identify the Horizon Europe call(s) as part of their Seed Fund application. Eligible Horizon Europe calls are those identified under 'Route 1: Collaborations'.

Applicants under Route 3 should be able to justify as part of their Seed Fund application the need for a consultancy service to develop the Horizon Europe proposal and its added value for applying and securing a Horizon Europe project.

The definition of 'Consultancy' may be extended, on a case-by-case basis, to refer to a legal entity (such as an organisation/ institution) offering a comparable service of developing the proposal for a specified fee.