Demand-led innovation in security
Civil Security for Society 2026 · HORIZON-PCP · TRL 6 to 8 · Needs partners
What this call funds
This call funds pre-commercial procurement projects that help public buyers and security practitioners jointly develop and test new civil security technologies before they hit the market. It pays for competitive R&D contracts with at least two suppliers building prototypes, which get validated in real operational settings, with the goal of preparing follow-up public procurement. It aims to help startups and SMEs access public procurement markets and scale their businesses.
defence security · sme scaleup · public health · regional development
Who wins this
A consortium of public procurers and civil security practitioners from at least three EU Member States who want to run a pre-commercial procurement process to mature and validate innovative security technology prototypes from competing suppliers.
Could you win this call?
Only the website is required.
The call in detail
- Indicative grant size
- €5.8M
- Funding model
- Budget-based. Reimbursement of actual eligible costs
- Submission
- Single-stage submission (full proposal at once)
- Type of action
- HORIZON Pre-commercial Procurement
- Partners
- Required. The call asks for a consortium: at least 6 partners, from 3 countries.
- Eligible applicants
- public body, non-profit, SME, startup
- Support to third parties
- Financial support to third parties may be provided as grants or prizes to give final end-users, such as citizens, incentives to adopt the solutions, including costly hardware, with a maximum of EUR 100,000 per third party.
- Also required
- Requires at least 3 practitioners and 3 public procurers as beneficiaries from at least 3 different EU Member States or Associated Countries, with at least two independent public procurer entities in different countries, and subcontracted work must be performed in at least 3 Member States.
- Sectors
- Cybersecurity · Defence
- Eligible countries (45)
- 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, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Israel, Türkiye, Ukraine, Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Georgia, Armenia, Moldova, Tunisia, New Zealand
Read the full conditions from the official call ›
General conditions 1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes. Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System. 2. Eligible Countries described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide. 3. Other Eligible Conditions Subject to restrictions for the protection of European communication networks. The following additional eligibility criteria apply: This topic requires the participation[[See General Annexes page 12 on the Consortium Composition as regards Pre-commercial Procurement.]], as beneficiaries, of at least 3 practitioners and 3 public procurers[[Under this topic, the participation is required of minimum three procurers as beneficiaries in the buyer’s group for the PCP. The third procurer in the buyer’s group can be a private procurer or an NGO that provides similar services of public interest as the public procurers.]]. These beneficiaries must be from at least 3 different EU Member States or Associated Countries. One organisation can have the role of practitioner and public procurer simultaneously, both counting for the overall number of organisations required for eligibility. Among the public procurers[[Under this topic, the participation is required of minimum three procurers as beneficiaries in the buyer’s group for the PCP, out of which minimum two must be independent legal entities that are public procurers, each established in a different Member State or Associated Country and with at least one of them established in a Member State. The third procurer in the buyer’s group can be a private procurer or an NGO that provides similar services of public interest as the public procurers.]], minimum two must be independent legal entities that are public procurers, each established in a different Member State or Associated Country and with at least one of them established in a Member State. For participants with practitioner status, applicants must fill in the table “Information about security practitioners” in the application form with all the requested information, following the template provided in the submission IT tool. If projects use satellite-based earth observation, positioning, navigation and/or related timing data and services, beneficiaries must make use of Copernicus and/or Galileo/EGNOS (other data and services may additionally be used). described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes. 4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes. 5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes. 5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual. 5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes. 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants The granting authority may, up to 4 years after the end of the action, object to a transfer of ownership or to the exclusive licensing of results, as set out in the specific provision of Annex 5. PCP/PPI procurement costs are eligible. The specific conditions for actions with PCP/PPI procurements in section H of the General Annexes apply to grants funded under this topic. Beneficiaries must ensure that the subcontracted work is performed in at least 3 Member States — unless otherwise approved by the granting authority. Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants / prizes. The maximum amount to be granted to each third party is EUR 100 000 to provide financial incentives to final end-users that are not part of the consortium (e.g., citizens) to adopt the solutions, including costly hardware components. described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes. Specific conditions described in the topic conditions
Who has won calls like this
Organisations that most often win this call family · 25 past winners