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Reducing industrial emissions and improving collaboration between workers and artificial intelligence (AI) are two priorities for Europe’s manufacturing sector. Under HORIZON-CL4-2027-02-two-stage, the European Commission (EC) offers €82.5 million for innovative energy technologies and human-centric AI solutions. This Horizon Europe two-stage call supports projects that can demonstrate technological advances alongside measurable industrial benefits.

The call just opened, with a first-stage deadline of 2 February 2027 and a second-stage deadline of 2 September 2027. Applicants must first submit a short, anonymous proposal before potentially being invited to develop a full application. Applications can be submitted under two separate call topics.

Call topic	Type of Action	Budget (EUR million)	Budget/ project	Exp. Number of funded projects
HORIZON-CL4-2027-02-MAT-PROD-32-two-stage: Efficient energy input from renewable sources and energy management in the process industries	RIA	52.5	7.00 to 9.00	6
HORIZON-CL4-2027-02-DIGITAL-EMERGING-52-two-stage: New approaches for Human/AI collaboration for the workforce of the future	RIA	30	4.00 to 6.00	5

Decarbonising process industries through renewable energy integration

HORIZON-CL4-2027-02-MAT-PROD-32-two-stage supports technologies that reduce fossil-based energy inputs in energy-intensive process industries. The topic contributes to the Leadership in materials and production for Europe destination and the Processes4Planet and Innovative Advanced Materials for the EU partnerships. Projects should achieve a minimum 20% reduction in the carbon footprint through technological innovations, while demonstrating economic viability and potential for wider industrial application. Proposals should address several of the following technological approaches:

• Advancements in the use of energy from renewable sources in production processes with improved energy efficiency.
• Integrated energy systems with novel storage elements to compensate for fluctuations in renewable energy availability.
• Solutions for low/medium temperature (100 – 500 °C) energy inputs in energy-intensive industries, including hybrid solutions and a progressive reduction of the use of fossil carriers of energy.
• Solutions for high-temperature (> 500 °C) energy inputs in energy-intensive industries, including high-temperature electricity-driven processes and high-temperature energy storage.
• Application of high-performance insulation materials and new innovative advanced materials that can improve heat capture, storage, and retrieval, particularly for scalable high-temperature applications. Such materials should minimise the use of critical raw materials, thus enabling effective recycling.

The EC expects pilot-scale demonstrations, preferably in real industrial environments. Projects should start at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4–5 and reach TRL 6–7 by completion. A business case and exploitation strategy must demonstrate potential scalability and commercial deployment. Applicants are also encouraged to apply a greenhouse gas avoidance methodology with clearly defined emission baselines.

Pro tip: Quantify the expected emission reductions against an industrial baseline and demonstrate how your solution manages renewable energy fluctuations without compromising production performance. Purely adapting production schedules to electricity availability is outside the call’s scope.

Developing human-centric AI for the manufacturing workforce

HORIZON-CL4-2027-02-DIGITAL-EMERGING-52-two-stage supports AI technologies that improve cooperation between industrial workers and intelligent manufacturing systems. Under the destination Achieving open strategic autonomy in digital and emerging enabling technologies, the topic contributes to the Made in Europe and AI, Data and Robotics partnerships. The EC aims to increase manufacturing productivity and adaptability while improving workers’ well-being, inclusion, skills development and knowledge sharing.

Proposals must address at least two of three technological areas:

• Human-AI co-learning: Capturing and formalising workers’ knowledge through AI-supported learning, mentoring and knowledge transfer.
• Human-AI teamwork: Developing natural interaction systems that enable workers and intelligent machines to collaborate on complex manufacturing tasks.
• Adaptive human-machine interfaces: Creating systems that respond to individual workers’ capabilities, needs and cultural backgrounds.

Projects should demonstrate how these approaches can improve industrial operations while keeping human expertise central to production processes. Applicants should address workforce diversity, accessibility, gender considerations and potential AI bias. Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) expertise can contribute to understanding the ethical, organisational and societal implications of AI adoption. The proposed solutions should also support industrial competitiveness through more adaptable production systems and improved knowledge management.

Pro tip: Involve industrial end-users and workers when defining use cases. Demonstrate how your AI technologies improve collaboration, usability and knowledge transfer, rather than focusing exclusively on automation performance.

Understanding the two-stage application procedure

Unlike conventional single-stage Horizon Europe calls, HORIZON-CL4-2027-02 uses a two-stage submission process. The first stage enables applicants to present their proposed innovation and expected impact without immediately preparing a complete project implementation plan.

1. First stage: Demonstrating excellence and impact

The 2 February 2027 deadline applies to short proposals evaluated anonymously. Applicants must not disclose organisation names, acronyms, logos or personnel names in the abstract or Part B. The evaluation focuses on the Excellence and Impact criteria. First-stage proposals should therefore:

• Clearly explain the industrial challenge and proposed technological solution.
• Demonstrate innovation beyond the current state of the art.
• Quantify expected outcomes and their relevance to the topic.
• Present a credible pathway towards industrial impact.
• Comply with the required anonymisation rules.

Pro tip: Develop a strong project concept before drafting the first-stage application. Avoid references to previous projects, facilities or achievements that could indirectly identify consortium members.

2. Second stage: Preparing the complete proposal

Applicants passing the first-stage evaluation will be invited to submit a full proposal by 2 September 2027.

The second-stage application requires a detailed methodology, implementation plan, consortium structure, budget and impact strategy. Both topics require a business case and exploitation strategy, with additional pages permitted in the second-stage proposal to accommodate this information. Although the first stage is shorter, successful applicants will need a well-defined consortium and credible industrial validation strategy to prepare a competitive full proposal.