Latest progress on Horizon Europe’s Implementation Strategy

Horizon Europe’s Implementation Strategy provides the framework for carefully designed rules and efficient processes across the entire programme and project life cycle. It allows the programme to deliver its impacts as efficient and user-friendly as possible.

The Strategy focusses on the following objectives:

• Maximising impacts;
• Ensuring greater transparency and further simplification;
• Fostering synergies with other EU spending programmes;
• Easing access through digital transformation and outreach.

The Commission validated, refined and developed the Strategy based on existing stakeholder feedback, internal analysis of needs and studies as well as via a comprehensive consultation and co-design process, including:

• An open web consultation;
• Stakeholder consultations in Member States by way of 20 national/regional events;
• European R&I Days in Brussels on 24-26 September 2019.

This process was organised around a series of building blocks, corresponding to parts of the programme and project life-cycle (work programme, submission and evaluation, model grant agreement, dissemination and exploitation, data and reporting, control strategy, extended use of simplified forms of costs), specific cross-cutting considerations (European partnerships, international cooperation, synergies) and enabling aspects (outreach, digital transformation).

The Strategy reflects the situation on 01/01/2020. The relevant governance bodies of DG Research and Innovation’s Common Implementation Centre have approved it at the end of 2019. A progress report will be published in the second semester of 2020.