06 de February de 2026
Dinamización rural
Cambio climático y gestión de recursos naturales
Resiliencia y competitividad
Two calls for proposals from “Cluster 6” place rural communities at the heart of European innovation
- Two calls for proposals from “Cluster 6” place rural communities at the heart of European innovation
- Competitiveness, resilience and generational change set the agenda for 2026 and 2027
- The program allocates more than 14 billion euros to promote a more cohesive Europe.
The European Commission (EC) has published the new Horizon Europe work program for 2026-2027, outlining the main funding opportunities for research and innovation in the coming years. This strategic framework again emphasizes territorial challenges, with particular attention to rural areas and their role in the transition to a more sustainable, competitive, and inclusive model.
Within the program, Cluster 6: “Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment” focuses on two calls of special interest to rural areas, addressing structural challenges such as depopulation, economic diversification, social innovation or adaptation to the climate transition.
Call for applications 2026
Among the most outstanding opportunities is the call for proposals “Boosting sustainable competitiveness in rural areas through innovation”, open since January 14 and closing on April 14, 2026 .
This call for proposals seeks to improve the understanding of what it means to be sustainably competitive in rural areas, incorporating not only economic variables, but also social and environmental ones. In this regard, projects should contribute to:
Analyze the factors and obstacles that condition rural competitiveness in contexts of market failures and territorial inequalities.
Propose competitiveness indicators that integrate social and environmental performance.
Improve access to services and business opportunities in diverse rural areas.
Goals
One of the central focuses of the call for proposals is to promote rural entrepreneurship, especially among young people . Projects must support startups and companies led by young rural residents to design, prototype, and test solutions.
Digital and technological.
Based on nature.
Social and innovative.
These solutions should contribute both to improving access to services and to generating new economic opportunities, while also promoting the exchange of experiences between rural territories through inter-regional networks.
The call also aims to strengthen access to training and the acquisition of new skills through digital and hybrid education, as well as to connect university graduates with young rural entrepreneurs to facilitate knowledge transfer and new collaborations.
Financial support and cooperation
Projects may include financial support to third parties , in the form of grants, to support startups and small businesses, with a maximum amount of €60,000 per beneficiary. Proposals are also expected to build on previous results and actively collaborate with other projects funded under Horizon Europe.
In this context, the importance of coordination with initiatives of the EC Joint Research Centre (JRC) is also emphasized, in particular with the Rural Observatory and the “Startup” Villages Forum , as well as the effective integration of the social sciences and humanities and the gender perspective in all phases of the project.
Call for applications 2027
The “Horizon Europe” program also anticipates a second specific call for 2027, “Strengthening the resilience of rural communities to impacts” , the opening of which is tentatively planned for April of that year.
This funding line seeks to improve the capacity of rural communities to anticipate, absorb and adapt to different types of impacts, including:
Socioeconomic and demographic shocks .
Effects of climate change.
Economic and structural transitions .
Environmental and systemic risks .
The call focuses on integrated approaches that strengthen territorial resilience and the response capacity of rural communities in the face of uncertainty.
Overall, “Horizon Europe” 2026-2027 foresees an investment of over 14 billion euros , thus consolidating the role of research and innovation as key instruments for future-proof rural development.