Horizon Europe Office in Ukraine, NRFU, is two years!

On October 17, 2025, Horizon Europe Office in Ukraine, National Research Foundation of Ukraine, celebrated its second anniversary!

The mono-beneficiary Project HEOinUA–101132682 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101132682, with a duration of 36 months – ‘Horizon Europe Office in Ukraine’ as the key National Contact Point – is being successfully implemented by the National Research Foundation of Ukraine through a Grant Agreement signed with the European Union, represented by the European Commission. Its goal is to increase the involvement of Ukrainian participants and take Ukraine’s participation in the Horizon Europe Programme to a new level.

 We summarise the results of two years of activities and proudly share our achievements and accomplishments during this time, as well as our plans for the future.

The Office’s target audience includes the European Commission, National Contact Points for the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon Europe, scientific and innovation communities, higher education institutions, scientific institutions, small and medium-sized enterprises, potential participants and the general public, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and other public authorities. The Office also cooperates with Ukrainian representatives on Committees responsible for monitoring the Horizon Europe implementation.

In the period from October 17, 2023, in cooperation with 17 National Contact Points, which include 22 representatives, 4 offline meetings and 4 online training events were held.

For 14 Programme Committees, consisting of 39 delegates, 17 online and 3 offline meetings were held.

The Office’s specialists organised and held 19 events, participated in over 100 jointly organised and partner events, held 58 working meetings, 45 online consultations, 18 offline consultations and 32 telephone consultations.

10 business trips within Ukraine and 6 international trips were made; 9 meetings were held with Horizon Europe Programme Offices in other countries, and more than 60 training webinars, conferences and meetings organised by the European Commission and international research organisations were attended, including in Belgium, Poland, Austria, Estonia and Georgia.

The events were held in 16 cities across Ukraine, attracting almost 11,150 offline and online participants over the entire period.

The Office received 690 requests about participating in the Programme during the whole period of its operation.

The Office’s database includes over 3,264 stakeholders from different countries around the world.

The project includes 19 deliverables, 13 of which have already been completed (submitted through the reporting system and approved by the EC), as well as 9 milestones, 5 of which have been completed.

The Office cooperates actively with representatives of research and scientific institutions in Europe and America; national coordinators of COST, Erasmus+, EUREKA, EIT Community Hub, IP Office and other EU programmes for funding science and innovation; Horizon Europe Programme Offices in the Kingdom of Norway, the Republics of Poland, Austria and Moldova, Estonia, Lithuania and Slovakia, and Georgia.

The result of such extremely active activity was a significant increase in the number of Ukrainian participants in the Horizon Europe Programme compared to the previous – Horizon 2020. Thus, as of October 2025, 2,393 applications had been submitted, and 235 grant agreements worth 63.19 million euros had been signed. A total of 226 Ukrainian organisations became participants in Horizon Europe. For comparison: for the entire duration period of Horizon 2020, which is 7 years, 173 Ukrainian organisations became participants in the Programme with funding totalling 48.10 million euros. The percentage of successful applications in Ukraine within the framework of Horizon Europa is 13.36% and exceeds this indicator in Horizon 2020, which is 9.23%.

Separately, we will mention that on September 12, 2024, the second meeting of the EU-Ukraine Joint Committee of Horizon Europe and Euratom took place. In the second working part of the event, which was held at the National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute named after Ihor Sikorsky”, the team of Horizon Europe Office in Ukraine, NRFU took part. Igor TARANOV, Head of the Office, presented its activities since its opening and emphasised the growing awareness of the domestic research community about the Horizon Europe Programme, as well as provided an overview of Ukraine’s participation and statistics of achievements in the Programme. And already on October 15, 2025, the third meeting was held in Brussels. During which the Executive Director of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine, Olga POLOTSKA, presented to those present the two-year achievements of Horizon Europe Office in Ukraine and the prospects for its further activities, to which she received favourable reviews from EC representatives during the meeting.

In addition, on September 16-17, 2025, the Head of the Office took part in the celebration of the European Days of Research and Innovation held in Brussels, Belgium. The European Commission’s flagship research and innovation event, which took place for the sixth time this year, brought together policymakers, researchers, business leaders and other stakeholders and the public to discuss and shape the future research and innovation agenda in Europe and beyond.

There is still a lot of work to be done. The office will continue to systematically support the network of NCPs and representatives of program committees, form a multilateral platform of stakeholders, provide comprehensive support to authorities, businesses, institutions of higher education, research, public organizations and all interested parties and to the Horizon Europe Programme.

The team of the Office expresses its sincere gratitude to the European Commission for its faith in us and our work, for the unprecedented support and assistance provided, as well as for the high evaluation of our activities. After all, thanks to you, we can work in wartime conditions, remaining in Ukraine, for the benefit of our country, directing efforts to support domestic scientists, researchers and innovators, and thus contribute to the achievement of our common goal of – integration of Ukraine into the European Research Area.

We express our gratitude to Mykhailo Hrebenyuk, director of «GUARD – Global promotion of UA R&D: Liaison office in Brussels for UA R&D community», who represents Ukraine in Brussels, for the constant coordination and support of our work in Brussels. We are also grateful to our constant partners, synergy with whom significantly strengthens our activities.