Open EU funding calls in Q4 2021 – find what matches your R&I instantly

As the annual cycle soon closes, October Q4 opened a new and continuous wave of EU funding calls. Many organizations might be focusing on reporting of the current year, but don’t forget this is also the time to build the next year’s strategy and work plans considering some funding deadlines can spawn into Spring 2022.

The calls include something for everyone: health, sustainability, mobility, defence, ICT, and more. It can be difficult and time-consuming to screen and assess all the open calls, so we have compiled a summary of interesting calls for your information. You can then use Spinbase, our AI-powered search engine, to match the right EU funding calls for your specific research and innovation ideas instantly.

Horizon Europe

The most ambitious EU research and innovation program ever, Horizon Europe currently has plenty of calls open with the majority of which falls under Pillar II Clusters.

The Health Cluster calls cover topics such as improving access and quality of healthcare, tackling diseases with new vaccine development and immunotherapy, finding solutions to common health issues such as obesity, mental wellbeing and non-communicable diseases and digital health.

Cluster 3 – Civil Security for Society find innovations to better protect EU borders, with 29 open calls.

Cluster 4 – Digital, Industry and Space – includes 36 open calls, mostly focusing on 3 topics. The first is optimizing and digitizing the mining, extracting, and processing of raw materials to reduce environmental impact and ensure material sustainability. The second looks for materials innovations to support transition to climate neutrality. The third topic is related to green, flexible, and advanced manufacturing under 3 Public-Private Partnerships: Made in Europe, Process4Planet and Clean Steel.

The greatest number of calls fall under Cluster 5 – Climate, Energy and Mobility, many of whose deadline will be during January-March 2022! The calls are mainly related to sustainable and secure energy supply; modelling and assessing climate change and climate strategies; and automated mobility under the Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility Partnership (CCAM Partnership).

Horizon Europe particularly for Research Institutes and Universities

For researchers, there are seven calls under Horizon Europe Pillar I – Excellence Science such as the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions for Staff Exchange, Doctoral Networks and Researchers at Risk, European Research Council Starting Grants and Synergy Grants and Research Infrastructure calls.

If your research institute or university are looking for opportunities to expand your network, the three current calls under “Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area” might also interest you.

Innovation Fund

The second call for large-scale projects under Innovation Fund was freshly launched on 26 October. It is one of the world’s largest programmes investing in novel low-carbon technologies, using revenues from the EU’s Emission Trading System. The new call has a budget of 1.5 B€ with a deadline in early March 2022.

LIFE Programme – Protect our environment

LIFE Programme is Europe’s commitment to tackle climate change with a budget of 5.48 B€ in 2021-2027. Interesting open calls at the moment belong to the Clean Energy Transition sub-programme with a deadline in January 2022. It aims to remove market barriers, mobilise investments and engage citizens and talents in sustainable energy solutions.

EU4Health

EU4Health (2021-2027 – a vision for a healthier European Union) will be investing 5.3B€ over the next seven years in urgent health priorities such as the response to the COVID-19 crisis and reinforcing the EU’s resilience for cross-border health threats, strengthening healthcare systems to withstand future global health threats, beating cancer and improving medicinal products and devices. Other areas, such as health systems’ digitalisation, reducing the number of antimicrobial-resistant infections and improving vaccination rates will also be boosted.

The Programme includes both Action Grants, Procurement and Prizes and it is open for health organizations, NGOs, private sector, and other eligible legal entities.

Public authorities, academia, research institutes, health organizations and civil society organizations should pay attention to EU4Health as many action grants are targeted to you. The second wave of Action Grants have just opened on 14th October 2021 with deadline in January 2022.

Public organizations and cities – Take note of Horizon Europe Pillar II, III and Mission

On top of the typical European Regional Development Fund, Social Fund, Cohesion Fund, that public bodies and cities normally investigate, Horizon Europe also present some particularly interesting opportunities, especially for innovative and sustainable urban development.

Pillar II of Horizon Europe is very relevant to smart and sustainable cities, with open calls on predictive road safety, circularity of solid waste, social and affordable housing, and new sustainable built environment. Pillar III also includes many grants to support building innovation ecosystems and stimulating innovation procurement.



A great deal of calls are still open (330 in total) in Connecting Europe Facility, EU4Health, European Defence Fund, Single Market Programme, EURATOM and more.

Find relevant funding calls for your innovation instantly on Spinbase

Spinbase is an AI-powered search engine to find relevant EU funding calls, partners, and projects within seconds. It helps you save hours wasted on reading and assessing hundreds of calls and expand the search to 30+ EU programmes so you do not miss out on anything.

Simply enter your innovation idea or abstract, and you will get a shortlisted and relevant list of EU funding calls, projects and partners personalized to you based on a semantic analysis of your input.

Contact Amir Moslemi, Business Development Manager to understand how Spinbase can be used for your funding needs.