Deadline: 23 September 2025
The European Commission is accepting submissions for the Physical and Cognitive Augmentation in Advanced Manufacturing topic.
Scope
- Proposals should develop breakthrough technologies to augment human capabilities and skills. Proposals should cover all of the following aspects:
- Develop breakthrough solutions (based on e.g. mechatronics, sensing and photonics) for human-centric approaches; these include innovative perception technologies to sense the shopfloor environment and to predict the intentions of humans, also leading to enhanced worker safety and reduction of discomfort, fatigue and physical and psychological stress;
- Develop innovative methodologies, potentially using AI, to provide reasoning capabilities and to control the behaviour of the manufacturing systems, to support humans and to interact and communicate with them; this will foster natural improvements in efficiency, sharing of knowledge, inclusiveness, accessibility and flexibility;
- Assess and take into account the needs of managers and workers, at the beginning of the design phase and throughout all stages up to the development of a prototype, ensuring that both workers and managers have the right skills to implement the innovative solutions and that the solutions take into account the variety of workforces;
- Develop new methodologies to perform an assessment of augmentation technologies and their suitability and value added (beyond economics) for workers in all their diversity.
Funding Information
- Budget (EUR) – Year 2025: 35 000 000
- Contributions: 4000000 to 6000000
Expected Outcomes
- Manufacturing industry should benefit from the following outcomes:
- Empower workers at all levels in factories, both individuals and teams, through breakthrough augmentation technologies embodying the next stage in human-machine interactions;
- Enhance, with the help of these technologies and related contributions from Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), the flexibility, inclusiveness, safety and well-being of workers in the industrial environment, leading to more attractive jobs in the EU, attracting and retaining talents from new generations (e.g. Generation Z);
- Foster the human-centric aspect of the Industry 5.0 model, through insights into how technology affects the working environment and the organisation, and into how technology can support the worker in their career (including the associated meaningful job profiles).
Eligibility Criteria
- Entities eligible to participate:
- Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from nonassociated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call/topic.
- A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.
- To become a beneficiary, legal entities must be eligible for funding.
- To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
- the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions:
- Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
- the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States:
- Aruba (NL), Bonaire (NL), Curação (NL), French Polynesia (FR), French Southern and Antarctic Territories (FR), Greenland (DK), New Caledonia (FR), Saba (NL), Saint Barthélemy (FR), Sint Eustatius (NL), Sint Maarten (NL), St. Pierre and Miquelon (FR), Wallis and Futuna Islands (FR).
- countries associated to Horizon Europe;
- Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Tunisia, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom.
- the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions:
For more information, visit EC.