HORIZON-CL6-2026-01

HORIZON‑CL6‑2026‑01 sits inside the 2026–2027 Horizon Europe Work Programme part dedicated to food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment, and it is framed by the Commission’s priorities on food security, water, nature and sustainable prosperity.
The wider Cluster 6 programme aims to balance environmental, social and economic objectives while reducing environmental degradation, halting biodiversity loss, improving natural resource management and supporting climate objectives.

In practical terms, the 2026 call opens funding opportunities in six main destinations: biodiversity and ecosystem services, fair and healthy food systems, circular economy and bioeconomy sectors, clean environment and zero pollution, land/ocean/water for climate action, resilient rural/coastal/urban communities, and governance/environmental observations/digital solutions for the Green Deal.

Main topics in 2026

The call includes a wide range of topics, but the most visible ones under HORIZON‑CL6‑2026‑01 include:

• Biodiversity: understanding and tackling the decline of insects, groundwater ecosystem assessment methods, deep sea ecosystem conservation, protected areas, and nature-positive economy scenarios.

• Circular bioeconomy: improving circularity of multilayer plastic food packaging, recycling mixed textile waste, recovering critical raw materials from WEEE, biomass flow mapping, bioeconomy policy support, bio-based innovation and blue bioeconomy topics.

• Zero pollution: marine ecosystem disturbance from underwater noise, bioremediation of conflict-contaminated ecosystems, managed aquifer recharge, and aquatic pollution decontamination.

• Climate and water: policy effectiveness in agriculture and forestry, and future water infrastructures.

• Rural and community resilience: sustainable competitiveness in rural areas through innovation.

• Governance and digital enablers: blue economy partnerships, social drivers in agriculture, ocean science, Atlantic cooperation, greenhouse gas monitoring, geospatial open-source tools, Earth intelligence with AI, and knowledge flow / AKIS topics.

Key Data

The call package is single-stage for the topics under HORIZON‑CL6‑2026‑01, with the work programme showing one common deadline date for the relevant topics in this call line.

• Call ID: HORIZON‑CL6‑2026‑01.

• Opening date: 17 April 2026.

• Deadline: 17 September 2026.

• Type: single-stage call.

• Overall indicative budget: €210 million.

• Indicative number of topics: 20.

Why it matters

This call is important because it connects environmental ambition with deployable innovation: better packaging circularity, smarter recycling, stronger bio-based systems, cleaner waters, healthier ecosystems and more evidence-driven policy.
For organisations active in sustainability, nature restoration, circular materials, digital environmental services or policy support, HORIZON‑CL6‑2026‑01 offers a wide menu of highly relevant opportunities with strong EU policy alignment.