Lump-Sum Grants in Horizon Europe: What They Are, How to Budget and Why They Change Your Bid
29/10/2026
About
Lump-sum grants are estimated to cut beneficiaries' administrative costs by between 14% and 30% over a project's lifetime, a significant saving for those who get their budget right. But that saving comes with a trade-off: unlike actual-cost grants, lump-sum funding requires applicants to fix their entire budget at proposal stage, structured by work package and partner. Get it wrong at submission, through under-costing, poor work package design, or misreading how evaluators assess the figures, and it can directly affect your score or your grant agreement.
Lump-sum funding is fast becoming the default in Horizon Europe. The European Commission has set a target of allocating up to 50% of the budget through lump-sum mechanisms by 2027, already backed by more than 200 lump-sum topics across the 2023–2024 work programmes and now extended across all three Pillars. If you're bidding into the 2027 call cycle, chances are your proposal will need to follow lump-sum rules, with a budgeting approach that's fundamentally different from what most applicants are used to.
This session provides a clear, practical grounding in how lump-sum grants work, what they mean for how you structure and cost your proposal, and what to watch out for when building your budget ahead of 2027 deadlines.
Key takeaways:
- What lump-sum funding is, how it differs from actual-cost grants, and which 2027 calls are likely to use it
- How to structure your budget by work package and partner, and what evaluators are looking for when they assess your figures
- How the EC's Horizon dashboard for lump-sum evaluations works, and how to use it to benchmark your personnel costs
- Common budgeting mistakes that weaken proposals, including under-costing personnel and misaligned work package design, and how to avoid them
- What happens at reporting stage under lump-sum rules, and why work package completion (not expenditure) is what gets you paid
- Practical tips for justifying costs that sit above benchmark figures, particularly for institutions in higher-cost countries
Who should attend:
- Researchers, project coordinators, and R&I support staff preparing Horizon Europe proposals for the 2027 call cycle
- Applicants new to lump-sum funding, or moving from actual-cost to lump-sum bids for the first time
- Finance officers and grants administrators involved in proposal costing
If you have any questions regarding this event, please contact us at events@crowdhelix.com
Date & Time
29 October, 2026 at 10 AM GMT
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