The total budget for Call 2025 is €172 million, up from €165 million.

Funding allocation is organized around distinct funding envelopes per project type to ensure strategic support:

• IA-Flagship Topics: Each has a budget of approximately €20 million.

• Innovation Actions (IA): Each IA topic has a budget of around €14 million.

• Research and Innovation Actions (RIA): Each RIA topic is allocated about €7 million.

The exact number of projects funded depends on the number of proposals that meet the selection criteria and the amount of funding they request within these budget limits. 

The CBE JU (Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking) programme is funded jointly by the European Union and the private sector, specifically through a public-private partnership between the European Commission and the Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC). The CBE JU is established under Horizon Europe, linking EU funding mechanisms with industry engagement. More precisely, the Council Regulation (EU) No 2021/0048, establishing the Horizon Europe Joint Undertakings and including the CBE JU, mandates that financing for the CBE Programme Office is shared equally between the European Commission and BIC. 

This means there is a co-financing model where EU public funds (originating effectively from the EU budget managed by the European Commission) and private industry contributions (through BIC) jointly finance the programme’s operational costs and activities.

In the document at the downloadable link, it is also mentioned that BIC has established a ‘project contribution’ for its members to manage their financial participation in projects; however, these project contributions are managed internally by BIC, separate from CBE JU, and are not eligible costs reimbursed by the CBE JU grants.

Time span 

• Coordination and Support Actions (CSAs) last 2 to 3 years.

• Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) span 3 to 4 years.

• Innovation Actions (IAs), including Flagship projects, are 4 to 5 years long.

Financial conditions

Innovation Actions (IAs), including Flagships, have standard funding rates of 60% of eligible costs for for-profit entities and up to 100% for non-profit entities. 

Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) receive 100% funding of eligible costs. 

Participants—particularly BIC members—can also request less than the maximum funding rate to increase their in-kind contributions (IKOP) to operational activities, which is part of the eligibility and evaluation criteria.

Under Horizon Europe rules, the outlined financial support mechanism is exclusively non-reimbursable grant funding.

Financial entities

• The European Commission is the official EU public funding body.

• The Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC) is the private industry partner.

• The CBE JU itself is operating the joint undertaking.

• Supporting online platforms (EU portals, BIC, EEN), facilitating administration and collaboration.

Foreseen call deadline: 18 September 2025 17:00 CET