Tips & Tricks for a successful HORIZON-CID-2027-01-02 proposal
Opening
12 January 2027
Deadline
Keywords
Horizontal Activities
TRL 6-8
renewable energy
Clean Industrial Deal
market readiness
Climate action
clean tech demonstrator
energy storage and CCU
Your microfluidic SME partner for Horizon Europe
We take care of microfluidic engineering, work on valorization and optimize the proposal with you
HORIZON-CID-2027-01-02: R&I in Support of the Clean Industrial Deal: Clean Technologies for Climate Action
Why can an annual renewable electricity balance conceal supply gaps?
An annual balance can offset a deficit at one time with a surplus at another, concealing whether renewable supply is available when electricity is consumed. Using certificate and electricity-market data from 24 European countries for 2016–2021, Scholta and Blaschke reconstructed hourly profiles for the green electricity market. Their analysis exposed seasonal and intraday mismatches concealed by annual matching; it did not measure the performance of an industrial demonstrator. [1] For electrification projects within HORIZON-CID-2027-01-02, this suggests testing generation, storage and demand as a time-dependent system, alongside the topic’s objectives for lower energy costs, greater circular material use and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Download the MIC Horizon Europe 2026/2027 Calls Calendar:
Discover more!
Administrative facts: what do we know about the HORIZON-CID-2027-01-02 call?
Which call is it, and when is the opening and the deadline?
- Call name: R&I in Support of the Clean Industrial Deal
- Call identifier: HORIZON-CID-2027-01
- Destination: horizontal call, Work Programme part 14
- Topic: HORIZON-CID-2027-01-02, Clean Technologies for Climate Action
- Opening date: 12 January 2027
- Deadline: 15 September 2027
- Type of action: Innovation Action (IA)
What about the budget and estimated size of the project?
- Overall topic budget: EUR 140 million
- Number of projects: 8 indicative
- Budget per project: EUR 17.5 million on average (15 to 25 expected)
- TRL: from 6 to 8
What are the key eligibility and evaluation conditions?
- Thresholds: General Annex D, no topic-specific exception
- Page limit: 60 pages, business plan and market-readiness strategy included
- Portfolio rule: top proposal per technology area funded if above thresholds
- Consortium: industry driven, indicatively ten participants maximum
- Satellite data, if used: Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS
- NZIA sourcing clause for components with over 50% third-country dependency
- Commission may object to ownership transfer or exclusive licensing, up to 4 years post-project
- No JRC or clustering requirement; coordination with the 2026 twin topic encouraged
Scientific range: what does the Commission expect from the HORIZON-CID-2027-01-02 grant?
What outcomes are expected?
Two outcomes, both mandatory. First, a clean tech solution that measurably raises its circular material use rate and cuts the levelised cost of energy for end users. Baseline documented, Net-Zero Industry Act manufacturing goals served. Second, the same solution at TRL 8, ready to plug into a factory or a fleet.
What is within scope?
One main area, combinations allowed:
- Integrated net-zero emissions energy systems, grids included
- Enhanced zero-emission power technologies, renewable electricity and heat
- Storage and fuels: batteries, renewable hydrogen, advanced biofuels, synthetic fuels, plus CCU
- Network step-changes (electricity, heat, gas, hydrogen, CO2), advanced materials and recycling if tied to your value chain
Technology choices should avoid negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems. Projects addressing renewable hydrogen must ensure complementarity with activities under the Clean Hydrogen Joint Undertaking.
What are the specifically proposed research directions?
The wording is deliberately open and industry led. Our reading:
- Electrification of end-use sectors, direct or via intermediate technologies. The one explicit priority.
- Direct or indirect integration, straight to an industrial user or via the grid. Both count once GHG and competitiveness effects are quantified.
- A full value chain, not a component. Reusing earlier EU project results earns cheap points (often forgotten).
Scientific strategy: how can you enhance your chances of being funded through HORIZON-CID-2027-01-02?
What scientific choices matter most?
- Pick one main area and say so on page one. The portfolio rule funds the top proposal per area, so leading a quiet area beats third in a crowded one.
- Build the plan around the go/no-go moment. Engineering, techno-economic assessment, permits and final business plan all come before demonstration (permits are where we see timelines slip).
- Quantify LCOE and circularity baselines. Vague “significant improvement” claims won’t survive the impact criterion.
- Show the NZIA sourcing plan component by component.
- Substantiate the starting maturity. The topic expects activities to begin at technology readiness level (TRL) 6 and reach TRL 8 by project completion. Support the initial level with evidence and explain how the planned validation and demonstration activities will establish the final maturity.
Consortium & proposal-writing plan: what works best with this type of call?
Keep the consortium manageable. The work programme suggests no more than ten participants as an indicative size. Justify the number of partners by the extent of the clean technology value chain covered and the expertise needed.
- Industry in the driving seat. Coordinator, or at least technical lead, from a supplier or energy user. Universities and RTOs bring validation, not the steering wheel.
- Cover the chain: supplier, end user, integrator or utility, and the deployment leader. Name that last one.
- Include SMEs where they bring relevant expertise. SME participation is encouraged, without a prescribed quota. Select partners whose technical capabilities and deployment responsibilities support the chosen value chain and business case.
- Five listed impacts. Pick two, make them measurable. Ticking all five reads as noise.
- Business plan as core content, yearly update deliverable included. The extra pages exist for this.
How should demonstration results support a credible deployment decision?
How should demonstration results support a credible deployment decision?A useful validation plan connects each technical claim to a decision the industrial user must make. Define the energy service, operating range and acceptance criteria before testing. For example, specify the required heat temperature, electricity delivery profile or fuel quality, together with the conditions under which the solution must perform.
Prepare an evidence package that links test records to engineering assumptions and the business case. Identify which results come from the demonstrator and which rely on modelling or extrapolation. Record outages, maintenance and operating limits, and show how these observations change expected output, replacement needs and costs. Present sensitivity cases for the assumptions that could change the deployment decision.
The topic’s deployment requirements provide the decision framework: before the go/no-go point preceding contracting and demonstration, the project is expected to have detailed engineering plans, a techno-economic assessment, the necessary permits, and a complete business plan and market-readiness strategy identifying the industrial deployment partner or partners. Plan the subsequent demonstration to test those assumptions and update the deployment case with measured results.
The MIC already brings its expertise in microfluidics to Horizon Europe:
H2020-NMBP-TR-IND-2020
Microfluidic platform to study the interaction of cancer cells with lymphatic tissue
H2020-LC-GD-2020-3
Toxicology assessment of pharmaceutical products on a placenta-on-chip model
About the author
Julia Sepulveda Diaz, PhD
Chief Executive Officer, Microfluidics Innovation Center
Julia holds a PhD in glycobiology and neurobiology from Université Paris-Est Créteil. Before moving into microfluidics, she spent several years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Paris Brain Institute, on Parkinson’s disease, neuroinflammation, and the role of heparan sulfate in protein aggregation. Today she leads the Microfluidics Innovation Center as CEO, steering its researchers and engineers and its collaborative research and innovation projects.
FAQ - HORIZON-CID-2027-01-02
These questions examine how to compare clean technologies and interpret evidence on energy delivery, costs, circularity and environmental impacts.
What is a functional unit in a clean technology assessment?
A functional unit defines the service being compared, its quantity, quality and duration. In an energy assessment, specify the useful service: for example, heat delivered at a stated temperature over a defined period. The European Product Environmental Footprint method uses this approach to relate resource inputs and environmental impacts to equivalent performance.
Why is equipment price insufficient to compare energy costs?
Equipment price covers only part of the cost of supplying useful energy. The topic’s energy-cost objective concerns energy delivered to end users, including production, distribution and storage where relevant. A practical comparison should therefore state the delivery boundary and include the costs and losses of the stages within it.
How does utilisation affect the levelised cost of energy?
Lower utilisation spreads fixed investment and operating costs over less delivered energy, increasing their contribution per unit of output. A simple levelised cost of energy (LCOE) calculation makes this relationship explicit through capacity factor. Compare realistic operating profiles and keep fixed costs separate from costs that change with throughput.
Does hourly matching establish the emissions avoided by a project?
No. Temporal matching tests when claimed renewable supply and electricity demand coincide. Scholta and Blaschke examined accounting consistency, without quantifying system-wide emissions reductions. [1] An avoided-emissions estimate therefore needs a separate assessment of the project and its reference system, including the relevant energy supply and life-cycle boundaries.
How should degradation enter an energy-cost calculation?
Use the expected energy output for each year, allowing for deterioration over the service life. Holding costs constant, declining output raises cost per unit of energy. This comparative photovoltaic cost model illustrates the calculation through annual energy-yield degradation; other technologies need their own performance and replacement assumptions.
What should a storage round-trip efficiency measurement include?
Round-trip efficiency compares energy returned with energy supplied over a cycle that restores the same state of charge. Define the measurement boundary and include conversion losses and auxiliary loads within it. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s storage definitions distinguish these system losses from the storage element alone. Report the operating conditions alongside the result.
Is recycled content the same as end-of-life recyclability?
No. Recycled content describes secondary material entering production; recyclability concerns what may be recovered later. Keep them separate in material accounting. The Environmental Footprint method’s circularity model distinguishes recycled inputs from subsequent recycling and accounts for collection and processing losses. A theoretical recycling route does not establish the amount actually recovered.
Does carbon capture and utilisation necessarily remove carbon from the atmosphere?
No. Carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) can use captured carbon in fuels, chemicals or materials without permanently storing atmospheric carbon. The European Commission’s industrial carbon management framework distinguishes utilisation from permanent removal. Identify the carbon’s origin, its eventual release or storage, and the emissions associated with the whole pathway.
Can a lower carbon footprint demonstrate biodiversity protection?
No. Climate performance and ecological impacts require distinct evidence. The Product Environmental Footprint approach considers several environmental dimensions rather than greenhouse gases alone. For a clean technology demonstration, assess relevant land, water and ecosystem effects in the deployment setting; a lower carbon result cannot establish that these effects are acceptable.
How can a system producing several outputs avoid double-counting environmental benefits?
Define how shared inputs and emissions are assigned before comparing products. The Environmental Footprint method for multifunctional processes prioritises separating processes or assessing an expanded system; where that is unsuitable, use a justified allocation relationship. Apply the chosen method consistently so that several outputs do not each receive the same full avoided-impact credit.
References
[1] Scholta, H. F.; Blaschke, M. J. Temporal matching as an accounting principle for green electricity claims. Nature Communications. 2025;16:9280. doi:10.1038/s41467-025-65125-z