Autonomous Drive Ambition Cities (IA) - Apply AI
European Commission · Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON)
Posted 20 Oct 2026 · About 5 months left
Summary
Expected Outcome:
Development and demonstration of AI-enabled electric autonomous mobility services (level 4) in urban traffic, improving safety, sustainability, data sharing and commercial scalability across cities, through a large-scale demonstrator integrating 5 - 7 co-ordinated city pilots in 5 or more Member States or associated countries including at least one cross-border pilot between adjacent cities - to bring near-to-market autonomous driving technologies into real operations:
Delivery on the Apply AI Strategy flagship action “Autonomous Drive Ambition Cities” by bridging the gap between high technical maturity and sustainable commercial deployment in cities.
Strengthened competitiveness of European base vehicle manufacturers, AD technology stack providers, mobility service brokers, and mobility service operators through real-world deployment opportunities as addressed by the European Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Alliance (ECAVA), in particular its working group on Autonomous Driving deployment.
Safer, more sustainable and accessible urban mobility through the integration of electric autonomous vehicles.
Demonstration of scalable autonomous mobility services and…
Excerpt from the donor's page. The full text, annexes and forms are on the original call.
Eligibility and conditions
Show the eligibility text from the source
">General conditions
1. Admissibility conditions: Proposal page limit and layout
described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes.
Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System.
2. Eligible countries
described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.
A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
3. Other Eligibility Conditions
In order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, or security, it is important to avoid a situation of technological dependency on a non-EU source, in a global context that requires the EU to take action to build on its strengths, and to carefully assess and address any strategic weaknesses, vulnerabilities and high-risk dependencies which put at risk the attainment of its ambitions. For this reason, participation is limited to legal entities established in Member States, Iceland and Norway and associated countries. For the duly justified and exceptional reasons listed in the paragraph above, in order to guarantee the protection of the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, entities established in an eligible country listed above, but which are directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible country or a non-eligible country entity, shall not participate in the action.
described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion
described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes.
5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds
described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes.
5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes
described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual.
5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement
described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes.
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants
described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes.
Specific conditions
described in the specific topic of the Work Programme.
Application and evaluation forms and model grant agreement (MGA):
Application form templates — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System
Standard application form (HE RIA, IA)
Evaluation form templates — will be used with the necessary adaptations
Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA)
Guidance
HE Programme Guide
Model Grant Agreements (MGA)
HE MGA
Call-specific instructions
Ownership Control Declaration Annex
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 14. Horizontal Activities
HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 15. General Annexes
HE Programme Guide
HE Framework Programme and Rules for Participation Regulation 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764
EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
Guidance on participation in EU calls with ownership and control restrictions
EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions
Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement
Themes
- Artificial intelligence, intelligent systems, multi agent systems
- Cyber-physical systems
- Energy end-use efficiency and energy services
- Energy systems, smart energy, smart grids, wireless energy transfer
- Internet of Things
- Machine learning, statistical data processing and applications using signal processing (e.g. speech, image, video)
- Monitoring and control systems
- Networks (communication networks, sensor networks, networks of robots, etc.)
- Piloting
- Renewable electricity
- Systems engineering, sensorics, actorics, automation
- DigitalAgenda
- SocInnov
- AI