Last week, the European Commission launched the 2025 Innovation Fund calls, with a total budget of €5.2 billion aimed at reinforcing the competitiveness and resilience of European industry.
The EU Innovation Fund programme is among the world’s largest grant schemes supporting first-of-a-kind low-carbon technologies. From 2020 to 2030, it is expected to provide approximately €40 billion to accelerate the commercial demonstration of innovative low-carbon solutions, enabling industries to reduce their carbon footprints and transition towards climate neutrality.
This year’s calls and their corresponding Info Days are as follows:
Innovation Fund 2025 Call for Net-Zero Technologies (IF25 NZT Call)
The IF25 NZT Call will allocate up to €2.9 billion to innovative projects with significant potential to reduce GHG emissions across 5 topics.
The deadline to apply is 23 April 2026, 17:00 CET.
Register here for the online Info Day: 16 December, 09:00 – 15:30 (CET)
Innovation Fund 2025 Auction for Industrial Process Heat (IF25 Heat Auction)
The first European-wide auction for decarbonising industrial process heat has a budget of €1 billion to support electrified and direct-renewable heat production across 3 topics.
The deadline to apply is 19 February 2026, 17:00 CET.
Register here for the online Info Day: 10 December, 09:30 – 15:00 (CET)
Innovation Fund 2025 Auction for Hydrogen Production (IF25 Hydrogen Auction)
With a budget of €1.3 billion, the IF25 Hydrogen Auction will support the production of renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBO) hydrogen or electrolytic low-carbon hydrogen across three topics, including a topic for producers of hydrogen with maritime and aviation off takers.
The deadline to apply is 19 February 2026, 17:00 CET.
Register here for the online Info Day: 10 December, 14:30 – 18:00 (CET)
Auctions-as-a-Service
Via the ‘Auctions-as-a-Service’ scheme, Member States can dedicate national funds to support projects that have passed the evaluation award criteria but were not selected for Innovation Fund funding due to budgetary limitations.
This year, Germany will dedicate an additional €1.3 billion in national funds to support RFNBO hydrogen production projects nationally. Spain will also dedicate a total of €465 million in national funds, of which €415 million will support hydrogen projects and an additional €50 million to support industrial process heat decarbonisation projects.
Interested applicants are strongly encouraged to attend the online Info Days as the key features will be presented, such as its design and objectives, the application and evaluation process, and will include Q&A sessions. Several Innovation Fund National Contact Points will also host Info Days in their countries. Please reach out to your National Contact Point for more information.
It is strongly recommended that applicants write to the dedicated help desk for any questions on their applications, as well as consult the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), both found on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal.
