Boosting research and innovation in Widening countries with Teaming, Excellence Hubs, and ERA Chair actions

The European Commission invests €315 million in 63 new projects under three Horizon Europe: Widening participation and spreading excellence actions: Teaming for Excellence, Excellence Hubs, and ERA Chairs. The three funding opportunities were launched in 2023, and all projects are due to start their activities between end of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025.

Teaming for Excellence 

The flagship initiative aims to accelerate research and innovation by creating or upgrading centres of excellence in low-performing countries. It fosters partnerships between leading scientific institutions and those in low-performing countries, helping to improve competitiveness and address societal challenges.

The Teaming for Excellence call’s deadline for its second stage was on 7 March 2024, with 34 submitted proposals. 13 projects were selected for funding, starting their activities between November 2024 and January 2025.

ERA Chairs 

The action’s goal is to increase research capacity at widening universities or scientific centres by attracting top researchers and establishing a fully integrated team to enhance performance in a chosen scientific domain. This call for proposals also closed in March 2024, receiving 158 applications, of which 38 were selected for funding.

Excellence Hubs 

This funding opportunity fosters collaboration between academia, business, government, and society in Widening countries. After receiving 205 project proposals in March this year, 12 were selected to receive EU funding.

You can find all 63 projects selected under the three Widening calls in this overview. Additional information about the funded projects, including their objectives and the consortia, are available on CORDIS (Community Research and Development Information Service). CORDIS is the European Commission's primary source of results from the projects funded by the EU's framework programmes for research and innovation, celebrating its 30^th year of existence.

More about the Widening funding opportunities

If you are inspired by the Widening actions, submit your application for the latest Teaming for Excellence call that opened on 3 December 2024. The deadline for the first stage submission is 10 April 2025!