💰 Funding Details

Funding opportunity: HORIZON-CL6-2025-01-CIRCBIO-08

Quick facts

- Call identifier: HORIZON-CL6-2025-01-CIRCBIO-08

- Action type: *HORIZON-IA – Innovation Action*

- Maximum EC contribution per project: *≈ €30 million* (co-funding rate 70 % for profit entities, 100 % for non-profit)

- Single-stage deadline: *17 September 2025, 17:00 (Brussels time)*

- Opening date: 6 May 2025

- Project TRL target: typically TRL 5 → 7 by project end

- Destination: *Circular economy and bio-based sectors* (Cluster 6)

Policy context

This topic directly backs the European Green Deal, the EU Bioeconomy Strategy, the Circular Economy Action Plan, the EU Biotechnology & Biomanufacturing Initiative, and the Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design (SSbD) framework.

Strategic objective

“Bioprospecting and optimised production of terrestrial natural products” aims to unlock AI-assisted biodiscovery and biomanufacturing pipelines that deliver high-value, safe, and circular bio-based products without compromising biodiversity.

Expected outcomes

1. Broader portfolio of sustainable, accessible natural products with clear market applications (pharma, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, food/feed, agrochemicals, detergents).

2. Demonstrated advances in digital/AI tools for the biodiscovery pipeline.

3. Biodiversity preservation via biotechnological production routes that avoid wild over-harvesting and comply with Nagoya rules.

4. Stronger innovation framework through wide stakeholder engagement supporting EU biomanufacturing.

Eligible activities (non-exhaustive)

- In-silico prospecting & genome mining (incl. digital twins, ML).

- Creation of natural-product libraries & high-throughput bioactivity screening.

- Structure elucidation, isolation, purification.

- Strain/host engineering, fermentation, synthetic biology scale-up in bioreactors.

- Safety, SSbD and DNSH assessments; full sustainability LCA & socio-economic analysis.

- Demonstration at pilot/industrial scale with clear business model.

- Compliance with Access & Benefit-Sharing (ABS) under CBD/Nagoya Protocol.

- Dissemination, exploitation, standardisation & policy dialogue.

Who should coordinate?

A market-driven consortium led by an industrial/SME actor, with strong R&D partners, digital tech providers, biodiversity experts, end-users and policy/business interface organisations in your country and other eligible countries.

Funding rate & budget structure (indicative)

| Work package | % of total budget |

|--------------|-------------------|

| Digital biodiscovery tools | 15–20 % |

| Lab validation & bioactivity screening | 10–15 % |

| Bioprocess development & scale-up | 25–30 % |

| Demonstration & LCA/SSbD | 20 % |

| Horizontal (management, ethics, outreach, policy) | 10–15 % |

> Tip: Align large equipment costs with expected TRL progression and clearly justify capital investments within a 3–5-year project horizon.

📊 Evaluation Criteria

How your proposal will be scored

| Criterion | Weight | Threshold |

|-----------|--------|-----------|

| Excellence | 1/3 | 4/5 |

| Impact | 1/3 | 4/5 (priority tie-breaker) |

| Quality & Efficiency of Implementation | 1/3 | 3/5 |

1. Excellence

- Credibility of objectives: SMART alignment with the four expected outcomes.

- Soundness of methodology: Integration of *AI-omics-bioprocess* pipeline, SSbD and DNSH.

- Interdisciplinarity & innovation potential: Novel digital tools, new hosts, gene-editing strategies.

2. Impact

- Scale of environmental & socio-economic benefits: quantified GHG, land-use and water-footprint savings.

- Market uptake & deployment: TRL, partnering industries, regulatory pathway.

- Dissemination, exploitation, communication: open data, IP strategy, policy alignment, citizen outreach.

- Wider EU policy contribution: Green Deal, Bioeconomy Strategy, ABS compliance.

3. Implementation

- Work plan coherence & resources: clear WPs, milestones, risk registers.

- Consortium adequacy: complementarity, EU added value, your country SMEs.

- Management, risk & quality control: governance, gender & diversity plan.

Cross-cutting issues

Proposals that credibly address gender dimension, open science, climate mainstreaming and international cooperation can gain competitive edge in close-call situations.

📝 Application Strategy

Winning application strategy

1. ## Build a balanced, ABS-compliant consortium

- Combine your country industrial leaders, AI/omics SMEs, academic labs, culture collections, biodiversity authorities and civil-society stakeholders.

- Secure *Prior Informed Consent* (PIC) and *Mutually Agreed Terms* (MAT) early; attach draft ABS agreements as annexes.

2. ## Map your value chains early

- Select 2–4 target product families with complementary market sizes & risk profiles.

- Provide a stage-gated development plan (hit → lead → candidate → demo) with go/no-go criteria.

3. ## Embed digital & wet-lab workflows

- Present an integrated data architecture (FAIR principles) linking AI models, –omics repositories and lab automation.

- Explain how the platform will remain usable by EU industry beyond the project (open standards, licensing).

4. ## Demonstrate circularity & SSbD

- Conduct preliminary LCA hot-spot analysis and outline how the project will reach DNSH compliance.

- Include an SSbD checklist and mitigation actions for each TRL gate.

5. ## Exploitation & business model

- Quantify CAPEX/OPEX reductions vs. traditional extraction.

- Provide letters of intent from downstream users (e.g., a cosmetics brand in your country).

6. ## Synergies & EU added value

- Show complementarity with CBE JU, Horizon-2020 FNR-11-2020 projects, and the parallel marine topic.

- Commit to data and methodology exchange tasks under a common Cluster 6 knowledge hub.

7. ## Robust project management

- Apply risk-adjusted KPIs (technical, regulatory, IP, market) and a contingency budget (<5 %).

- Allocate >1 % of the budget for communication & citizen engagement focusing on biodiversity awareness.

> Golden rule: Each bullet in the proposal must explicitly map to one expected outcome or evaluation sub-criterion.

💡 Success Factors

Integrated AI-omics platform

A cloud-native, FAIR-compliant platform that links genome mining, ML prediction, digital twins and lab automation **demonstrates technological leadership and scalability**.

Biodiversity-positive sourcing model

Combine *ex-situ* collections, **in-vitro propagation** and synthetic biology to relieve pressure on wild ecosystems, aligning with EU Biodiversity Strategy.

Industry-led pilots with clear KPIs

Showcase **pilot fermenters (≥1 000 L) in your country** producing kilogram-scale batches, with cost-of-goods benchmarks vs. petro-based or plant-extraction routes.

Robust SSbD & LCA framework

Apply **Commission Recommendation 2022/2510** methodology from day 1, incorporating iterative hazard screening, circularity metrics and socio-economic indicators.

Strategic alignment & synergies

Map complementarities with CBE JU, Horizon 2020 FNR-11-2020 and the parallel marine topic; commit to **joint workshops and data-standard harmonisation**.

Structured exploitation & IP plan

Define **TRIPS-compliant IP packages**, joint-ownership rules and a *spin-out vs. licensing* decision tree, increasing investor confidence.

❌ Common Mistakes to Avoid

Ignoring Nagoya & ABS obligations

Proposers sometimes assume that sourcing from culture collections is automatically compliant. **Always prove legal provenance, PIC, MAT and benefit-sharing mechanisms**—missing documentation often leads to ineligibility.

Overpromising TRL escalation

Claiming TRL 8–9 within a 4-year IA without secured pilots is unrealistic. **Match scale-up plans, budgets and partner capabilities to TRL 7 at most**, or evaluators will downgrade credibility.

Treating digital and wet-lab work as separate silos

Running parallel AI and bioprocess tasks without a unified data pipeline prevents synergistic learning. **Explain how in-silico predictions feed directly into lab experiments and vice versa.**

Neglecting SSbD and DNSH evidence

Stating “the project will be sustainable” is insufficient. **Provide preliminary LCA numbers, toxicity screens and mitigation actions** already in the proposal.

Weak demonstration of market pull

Listing generic sectors (pharma, cosmetics) without **letters of intent, pricing benchmarks or freedom-to-operate analysis** fails the Impact criterion.

Underestimating dissemination obligations

Cluster 6 topics expect policy dialogue and citizen engagement. **A one-page communication plan is too thin**—detail formats, target audiences, KPIs and budget.

Bioprospecting and optimized production of the terrestrial natural products: new opportunities for bio-based sectors

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