Tips & Tricks for a successful HORIZON-INFRA-2027-SERV-01-02 proposal
Opening
09 March 2027
Deadline
Keywords
Research infrastructures
trans-national access
EOSC
virtual access
ESFRI Landmark
ERIC
EU priorities
emerging challenges
Ecodesign Regulation
RIA
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HORIZON-INFRA-2027-SERV-01-02: Access to research infrastructure services to enable R&I addressing EU priorities and emerging challenges
What needs to travel for an experiment: the researcher, the sample or the data?
The answer depends on where the experimental work must happen and who can perform it. A researcher may need to operate specialist equipment on site, while another project can send samples for analysis or use remotely accessible computing and data services. Each arrangement needs a clear transfer of experimental instructions and results. Designing access therefore starts with the research workflow: identify the physical operations, the expertise required and the information that must accompany each handover. HORIZON-INFRA-2027-SERV-01-02 supports integrated access to complementary research infrastructures so that teams can combine the services needed to investigate one of six priority challenge areas.
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Administrative facts: what do we know about the HORIZON-INFRA-2027-SERV-01-02 call?
Which call is it, and when is the opening and the deadline?
- Call name: Research Infrastructures 2027
- Call identifier: HORIZON-INFRA-2027-01
- Destination: INFRASERV
- Topic: HORIZON-INFRA-2027-SERV-01-02
- Opening: 09 March 2027
- Deadline: 15 June 2027, 17:00:00 Brussels time
- Type of action: Research and Innovation Action (RIA)
What about the budget and estimated size of the project?
- Total indicative topic budget: EUR 35.00 million
- Indicative number of projects funded: 6
- Expected EU contribution per project: around EUR 6.00 million
What are the key eligibility and evaluation conditions?
- Award criteria and thresholds: General Annex D, with Excellence additions on access quality and integration of access procedures
- At least one ESFRI Landmark or ERIC as beneficiary; for a distributed ERIC, a hosting entity can take that slot
- Access provision activities are mandatory
- Page limit 100 pages, no exploitation plan required
- Eleven third countries eligible for EU funding when providing access: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, India, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Korea, Singapore, USA
- The JRC may join after selection, as zero funding beneficiary or associated partner
- The highest ranked proposal in each area gets funded, thresholds permitting
Scientific range: what does the Commission expect from the HORIZON-INFRA-2027-SERV-01-02 grant?
What outcomes are expected?
Efficient access to the best facilities, through a single entry point portal, with converging conditions and selection procedures. Also a trained new generation of users, early career researchers first. Publication series are not what the Commission is after. Units of access delivered are.
What is within scope?
- Trans-national access, on site or remote, and virtual access to customised services
- Ad hoc user training, technical support, data stewardship
- Service improvement, if the improved service opens during the action
- Data management, interoperability, digital services connected to EOSC
- Outreach to industry, SMEs, widening and candidate countries
This is not a topic for building new infrastructure. Mid term service development (2 to 3 years) passes only when justified well.
What are the specifically proposed research directions?
Proposals address one area and must say which one.
- Area 1: cancer research through integrated biomedical infrastructures. Imaging, genomics, proteomics, trial management, AI on big datasets
- Area 2: sustainable agrifood systems and agroecological transitions, One Health, access to genetic resources
- Area 3: polar ecosystems, climate, biodiversity, pollution, science diplomacy
- Area 4: material circularity, tied to the Ecodesign Regulation and Critical Raw Materials Act
- Area 5: semiconductors, in line with the European Chips Act
- Area 6: geosphere infrastructures and geohazards
Scientific strategy: how can you enhance your chances of being funded through HORIZON-INFRA-2027-SERV-01-02?
What scientific choices matter most?
- Name your area on page one. Do not hedge across two.
- Describe the access procedures and, for trans-national access, the open calls and independent peer review of user projects. Access costs may be reimbursed as eligible actual costs, authorised unit costs, or a combination of both, under the applicable rules.
- Keep access to existing services as the main objective, and reflect this clearly in the work plan and resource allocation.
- Build for complementarity, not prestige. Six facilities that chain into a workflow beat fifteen offering the same thing.
- Show the selection machinery: published calls, independent peer review of user projects. Use the unit costs allowed for access.
- Tie service development to clearly identified research needs. Short-term improvements and new services can be supported when the resulting services are offered during the action and participating infrastructures ensure their long-term sustainability. Development of new or improved services for use in the medium term, over two to three years, may also be supported when duly justified. Explain the need, development milestones and planned availability to users.
Consortium & proposal-writing plan: what works best with this type of call?
- Determine the consortium size from the complementary services and expertise needed to address the chosen challenge area. The topic does not prescribe a partner-count range.
- One ESFRI Landmark or ERIC as beneficiary. Non negotiable.
- Combine research infrastructure operators with the data and technical expertise needed to deliver integrated services. Include SMEs where they contribute a defined capability. SME participation is not a topic-specific requirement, but the outreach and engagement plan should target relevant industries, including SMEs.
- Widening participation is evaluated here, not decorative. Budget real training slots.
- 100 pages is generous. Spend it on access tables, not prose.
How can an access service be made ready for external research teams?
Define a service specification that an external research team can use before applying. Describe the supported research tasks, accepted samples or datasets, preparation requirements, measurement or processing capabilities, and the outputs returned. State which steps the user performs and which the infrastructure staff handle.
A practical readiness check is to follow a representative request from initial contact to delivery. Check sample or data acceptance, scheduling, technical support and the interpretation of results. Agree how incomplete inputs, equipment interruptions and unsuccessful runs will be handled. Record quality checks alongside delivered outputs so that users can judge whether the service answered their research question.
Keep service development tied to access. The work programme supports short-term improvements when the resulting services are offered during the action and participating infrastructures ensure their long-term sustainability. It also allows duly justified development for use in the medium term, over two to three years. The proposal should distinguish services already available from those requiring development, with milestones showing when external users can use them.
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
Céleste Chidiac, PhD
Scientific writer and digital marketing specialist
Céleste Chidiac holds a doctorate in neuroscience and molecular biology from the University of Strasbourg. Since joining the Microfluidics Innovation Center in 2023, she has combined scientific writing with website management. For MIC’s Horizon Europe topic pages, she draws on her research background to explain scientific challenges and clarify funding priorities. Her writing helps prospective applicants understand each topic’s scope, expected outcomes and research directions.
FAQ – HORIZON-INFRA-2027-SERV-01-02
Practical questions about combining research services, preserving usable results and supporting infrastructure users.
What makes two research infrastructure services complementary?
Services are complementary when their outputs and capabilities help answer different parts of the same research question. Map the input required by each service to the output of the preceding step, including sample condition and data format. A customised workflow connects those steps into a sequence that users can follow.
Is remote sample analysis the same as virtual access?
No. Under the research infrastructure access provisions, analysing samples for a selected external team can be remote trans-national access. Virtual access provides services through communication networks without selecting users individually, although the infrastructure’s access policy still applies. The delivery mechanism alone does not determine the category.
How can researchers preserve the connection between data, methods and results?
Package the research files with descriptions of their relationships, provenance and responsible contributors. RO-Crate provides a machine-readable way to connect datasets, software and other research artefacts. It helps retain experimental context; packaging alone does not establish that the underlying result is scientifically valid. [1]
Why do shared metadata conventions matter across facilities?
Shared conventions help receiving systems interpret what a dataset contains and how it was produced. Agree descriptive fields and relevant community vocabularies before exchanging data. The FAIR Cookbook provides practical approaches to metadata, terminology management and data curation, with examples developed for life sciences. [2]
Does a persistent identifier make a dataset reusable?
No. An identifier helps reference a dataset, but reuse also needs descriptive metadata, understandable access conditions and clear permissions. FAIR means Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable; implementing these properties involves several technical and organisational choices rather than one identifier or software tool. [2]
How should a unit of access describe the service delivered?
Define a countable service with explicit boundaries. For example, a sample-analysis unit can specify the preparation included, analytical procedure and returned output. The access provisions require precisely defined units and supporting records; the unit should let providers and users understand consistently what was delivered.
How does technical feasibility differ from scientific peer review?
Technical feasibility asks whether the requested work can be performed with the available service and suitable inputs. Scientific review assesses the research project itself. Keep the two judgements traceable: a technically feasible experiment is not automatically scientifically compelling. Trans-national user projects require independent peer-review evaluation.
Why can a computational workflow stop working after a successful run?
Software dependencies, remote services or data locations can change. Preserve the execution environment and use representative tests to detect failures after updates. The RO-Crate study describes workflow testing and monitoring as ways to identify this deterioration; an archived workflow description alone cannot prevent it. [1]
Can FAIR data from different facilities be combined without further checks?
No. FAIR organisation supports discovery and reuse, but researchers still need to examine whether the datasets describe compatible samples, methods and variables. Treat data harmonisation as a separate research task. The FAIR Cookbook offers context-dependent approaches rather than a universal implementation that makes every dataset interchangeable. [2]
How can user training remain useful after an infrastructure visit?
Provide exercises, example data and instructions that users can revisit when analysing their own results. State the skills each activity develops and keep the materials accessible afterwards. ELIXIR’s training guidance explains how continuing access lets learners repeat exercises and consolidate knowledge at their own pace.
References
[1] Soiland-Reyes S, Sefton P, Crosas M, et al. Packaging research artefacts with RO-Crate. Data Science. 2022;5(2):97–138. doi:10.3233/DS-210053
[2] Rocca-Serra P, Gu W, Ioannidis V, et al. The FAIR Cookbook – the essential resource for and by FAIR doers. Scientific Data. 2023;10:292. doi:10.1038/s41597-023-02166-3