Horizon Europe 2026 Call: Circular economy and bioeconomy sectors
The Horizon Europe 2026 Cluster 6 call for proposals under the destination 'Circular economy and bioeconomy sectors' is now open. An overall indicative budget of €101 million has been reserved to support projects across 11 topics, including circular plastic food packaging, textile recycling, critical raw material recovery and bio-based innovation and standardization.
Overview of the topics
This single-stage call covers 11 topics, spanning Innovation Actions (IA), Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) and Coordination and Support Actions (CSA):
- Improving circularity of multilayer flexible plastic food contact packaging
- Advancing recycling technologies for mixed post-consumer textiles waste from blended products
- Advanced recovery of critical raw materials from Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
- Demonstrating and deploying innovative collection, sorting-for-reuse and repair systems for textiles at city/region level (Circular Cities and Regions Initiative topic)
- Understanding biomass flows in Europe
- Bioeconomy policy support hub for Member States, regions and sectors
- Advancing the European bio-based innovation enabled by biotechnology and biomanufacturing concepts
- Supporting pre-normative research for standardization of the bio-based products
- Balancing food security, bioeconomy, climate and biodiversity objectives to unlock sustainable value chains
- Bio-based innovation in society: supporting the sustainable way of living
- Harnessing the unique properties of marine organisms to deliver sustainable blue bio-based products
This call is identified by the code HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-CIRCBIO (single stage).
How to apply
Projects must be submitted as full proposals in a single-stage process, following the guidelines on the European Commission’s Funding & Tenders Portal. The deadline for submission is Thursday, 17 September 2026 at 17:00 CET.
Timeline
- 17 April 2026: Call opening
- 17 September 2026: Submission deadline
- January 2027: Applicants are informed of the evaluation results
- May 2027: Grant agreement signature for successful projects