If you are planning a Cluster 1 Health proposal for 2027, the timeline has just become shorter. The spring deadline that was previously set for April now falls on 17 February 2027.
The new dates come from the amended draft Health work programme, published on the Commission’s Comitology register on 26 June 2026. It sets new opening and deadline dates for all three 2027 Health calls. Below we go through the dates and what they mean for planning your proposal.
If you joined our Horizon Europe webinar in September, these dates replace the ones we presented there.
The dates in the amended work programme
| Call | Opening | Deadline |
| HORIZON-HLTH-2027-01, single stage, 10 topics, €341.6M | 29 October 2026 | 17 February 2027, 17:00:00 Brussels local time |
| HORIZON-HLTH-2027-02, two stage, 4 topics, €186.6M | 29 October 2026 | 17 February 2027, 17:00:00 Brussels local time (stage 1), 16 September 2027 (stage 2) |
| HORIZON-HLTH-2027-03, single stage, 3 topics, €81.5M | 3 June 2027 | 16 September 2027, 17:00:00 Brussels local time |
*One call keeps an April date: HORIZON-HLTH-2026-03, the Pandemic Preparedness COFUND topic, opens on 10 February 2027 and closes on 13 April 2027.
Revisit, the amended work programme for the updated information.
We are sharing it because the difference in the available proposal preparation time matters for planning.
What the new dates mean for planning
In the webinar we suggested allowing six to eight months from first looking at a call to submitting it. From today, 17 February is about four and a half months away, which is below that.
February is not an impossible target deadline to reach successfully, but it does take separate applicants into two situations.
For the single stage call, you are writing a full forty page proposal with the consortium locked at submission. Four and a half months is workable if your consortium already exists in outline. If partner search is still ahead of you, that is the part that will be under pressure, since writing can be compressed but partner recruitment cannot.
For the four two stage topics, February is a lighter deadline than it first appears. Stage 1 is ten pages, evaluated blind with no partner names, assessed on Excellence and Impact only, and the consortium can still be adjusted before stage 2 in September. If the idea is clear but the consortium is not yet settled, the two stage route is worth looking at before ruling out the spring.
Working backwards from 17 February
For a single stage proposal, the timeline should be kept strict:
- October: go or no-go decision, call selection confirmed
- November: partner search closed, consortium complete
- Late November to December: work plan agreed, budget negotiated across all partners
- January: full draft circulating to partners for comment
- Early February: text frozen, quality check, annexes and Part A finalised
- 17 February: submission, before 17:00 Brussels time
The November and December steps are the ones that tend to slip, and they are the hardest to recover later. The level of commitment from the Consortium partners is exceptionally vital as the proposal preparation spans the Holiday season.
Our advice
Adjust your plans according to the timeline set by the updated earlier Spring deadlines. Set strict milestones to the proposal preparation, clearly communicate the importance of commitment to the Consortium partners. Set the scope and value of the proposal soon and avoid sidetracks and numerous rescoping decisions.
If you want a second opinion on whether February is realistic for a particular call, just reach out to us. We are glad to take a look.
Best regards,
The Grants EU Funding team
Source: amended draft Health work programme, 26 June 2026 (PDF). The call conditions tables with these dates are on pages 14 to 26. The Comitology register entry holds the same document.