Deadline: 25-Sep-2025
The European Commission (EC) is accepting applications for the European Spaceports Programme.
Scope
- This coordination and support action will contribute to the expected outcomes by:
- Assessing best practices, standards and guidelines for launch operations from European spaceports, taking into account experiences from worldwide existing spaceports.
- Proposing a set of common regulatory practices and guidelines for European Spaceports and evaluating their impact on the launch operations.
- Involving European stakeholders participating in the development of safety equipment with the aim to strengthen the spaceports interoperability with their technological solutions.
- In this topic, the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content should be addressed only if relevant in relation to the objectives of the research effort.
Funding Information
- The check will normally be done for the coordinator if the requested grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000, except for:
- public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and
- cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (low value grant).
Eligible Activities
- The following activities are generally eligible for grants under Horizon Europe:
- Research and innovation actions (RIA): Activities that aim primarily to establish new knowledge or to explore the feasibility of a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution. This may include basic and applied research, technology development and integration, testing, demonstration and validation of a small-scale prototype in a laboratory or simulated environment.
- Innovation actions (IA): Activities that aim directly to produce plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered or improved products, processes or services. These activities may include prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication.
- Coordination and support actions (CSA): Activities that contribute to the objectives of Horizon Europe. This excludes research and innovation (R&I) activities, except those carried out under the ‘Widening participation and spreading excellence’ component of the programme (part of ‘Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area’).
- Programme co-fund actions (CoFund): A programme of activities established or implemented by legal entities managing or funding R&I programmes, other than EU funding bodies.
Expected Outcomes
- Common regulatory practices and guidelines will facilitate access to European spaceports and increase their attractiveness for European launch systems. The action is expected to contribute to the following outcomes:
- Awareness of stakeholders on practices and regulations;
- A comprehensive overview of technical challenges to be addressed in terms of guidelines and best practices;
- An assessment of the paths for the European spaceports regulations, guidelines and best practices to support safe and sustainable launch operations;
- An identification of the benefits for the European space market development, for European sovereignty as well as for international cooperation.
- Standards and guidelines should contribute to ease to launching from various spaceports.
Eligibility Criteria
- Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated 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.
- Specific cases:
- Affiliated entities: Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.
- Associated partners: Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any specific call/topic conditions. Entities without legal personality
- Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons.
- EU bodies: Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.
- 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.
For more information, visit EC.