By Julien Sudre, grant writer and founder of Grant360. Originally published 8 December 2025. Updated: 23 September 2026.
Build a Horizon Europe consortium by starting with the call and the work to be done, identifying the capabilities and users that work requires, then recruiting organisations that can make specific contributions. Check eligibility, define roles and resources, and test whether the partners can work together before submission. A strong network makes it easier to find and assess those partners, but the proposal must show why the particular combination can deliver its objectives and expected outcomes. The European Research Executive Agency (REA) recommends choosing partners around the project's goal and beginning the search early. REA: how to build a successful consortium.
This guide draws on the author's experience writing more than a hundred grant applications. The author has expertise in setting up and joining consortia. This article covers collaborative projects; consortium rules and evaluation criteria vary by action and topic. Always check the documents attached to your call in the Funding & Tenders Portal.
What should you decide before looking for partners?
Decide which topic you want to address, what your organisation can contribute, and whether you intend to coordinate or join another team's proposal. Prepare a short description of your evidence, facilities, access to users or data, and the work you could credibly lead. This gives a prospective partner something more useful than a generic expression of interest.
For example, "we work on artificial intelligence" says little about a role. "We can validate a multilingual clinical decision tool in two hospitals, with named teams for data governance and evaluation" gives a coordinator a basis for discussion, provided those commitments are real. Define any specialist terms on first use in your outreach material; a technology readiness level (TRL), for instance, describes the maturity of a technology, but a call may require a particular starting or target level. Check the topic before promising one.
The REA advises applicants to think about their project goal before choosing partners. A short capability statement can also reveal what you need from others: complementary research, implementation sites, regulatory knowledge, end users or exploitation capacity.
Where can you find relevant Horizon Europe partners?
Combine project data, official partner search tools and your existing professional contacts. CORDIS projects and results show organisations active in related funded projects. The Horizon interactive dashboard lets you explore participation data. The Funding & Tenders Portal partner search helps applicants find potential collaborators. REA also lists National Contact Points (NCPs), the Enterprise Europe Network and information days among partner search routes.
Start from three or four projects closely related to your topic. Identify participants whose actual tasks or results match a gap in your proposed team. Look at public outputs and recent activity, then ask your own collaborators for informed introductions. Participation in a past project is evidence of experience, not proof that an organisation has capacity or interest in your next one.
Events and online profiles can help others find you. Describe a specific capability and target topic in your profile, rather than listing every research field you cover. These channels are opportunities to start conversations; none guarantees an invitation to a consortium.
From the author's experience, events organised by the European Commission are one of the best ways to find new partners.
How do you choose partners rather than collect names?
Match every essential task to a demonstrated capability and every central expected outcome to a credible pathway. Ask prospective partners what they will contribute, who will do the work, what resources are available, and whether they can commit to the proposed timetable. Prefer a necessary role to a prestigious logo.
If a project promises testing by municipalities, the relevant question is not merely whether a city appears in the partner list. Which department will participate? What will it test? Who will make use of the result? Is its effort covered? The same scrutiny applies to a university, company or civil society organisation. The Commission's RIA/IA evaluation form considers the capacity of participants and of the consortium as a whole.
The right size and composition depend on the call. Many collaborative calls require at least three independent organisations from different eligible countries, but conditions and exceptions vary; REA's application guidance summarises the common rule, and the call documents are decisive. Once eligibility is satisfied, add organisations when their contribution strengthens the project. Neither a large consortium nor geographical variety is an automatic scoring advantage.
How should you design roles and governance?
Sketch the work packages and required expertise before finalising the partner list, then refine the design with the partners. Allocate task leadership according to capability and capacity. Make the coordinator responsible for integration and timely decisions; give other partners meaningful ownership of the work they are expected to deliver.
For each organisation, record its tasks, deliverables, person-months, budget and participation in decisions. Check that a partner expected to run a pilot has enough effort to recruit users, operate the pilot and analyse results. Define how the consortium will approve changes, settle disagreements and monitor progress. Keep governance proportional to the project's complexity; committees without a clear purpose make coordination harder.
The Commission's standard application form for Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) and Innovation Actions (IAs) includes work plan and consortium tables that can serve as a practical consistency check. Distinguish the proposal's governance plan from binding arrangements eventually recorded in the grant agreement and, where applicable, a consortium agreement.
In our own consortia, we try to get to know the people before assigning an important role. If we already know someone and have a past collaboration, it is even better. A Horizon Europe project means several years of collaboration, so the human aspect is essential. There should be trust from the beginning.
How do you approach a potential partner?
Send a concise, specific invitation that identifies the call, your concept, the capability you are seeking, the role you envisage and the next decision. Include a one-page outline with the problem, objectives, expected outcomes, tentative work packages and current partners. Explain what is already agreed and what remains open.
For example: "We are preparing a proposal for [topic identifier] on [problem]. We are seeking a partner able to lead [specific task] and contribute [evidence or facility]. Would a 30-minute discussion next week help us test the fit?" A first meeting should clarify interest, capacity, timing and possible constraints. It should not assume a commitment before the organisation has reviewed the plan.
Share sensitive information deliberately. A confidentiality agreement may be appropriate when disclosure warrants it, but the need depends on the information and the organisations involved. Record agreed next steps and who owns them so that a promising conversation leads to an informed decision.
Our own personal approach is to organise a meeting to discuss the collaboration, most often online, but face-to-face when possible. This proximity is important to build trust and often also to convince people to engage more deeply.
How can you test whether the consortium will work together?
Ask partners to produce a small, concrete input early: a task outline, pilot specification, user need, risk assessment or evidence supporting their role. This tests engagement and exposes incompatible assumptions while changes are still possible. A shared work plan and decision log can keep the discussion focused on the project rather than on draft ownership.
For instance, if three partners claim responsibility for exploitation but no one has identified potential users or adoption barriers, the role allocation is incomplete. Agree who investigates which route to use, how the results will be handled and what each partner can realistically commit to. Review the proposal as a single document: objectives, methods, impacts, tasks and budgets should use consistent figures and terminology.
Do not treat social rapport as evidence of implementation capacity. Trust grows when partners deliver agreed inputs, identify problems early and make decisions transparently. These behaviours during proposal preparation offer a more useful signal than an enthusiastic first meeting. In our experience, someone who does not contribute during proposal preparation is likely to behave similarly if the project is funded.
What does the coordinator need to manage during proposal writing?
The coordinator should maintain the overall concept, timetable, definitive versions and open decisions. Set deadlines for partner inputs early enough to allow scientific and budget review, reconcile overlapping text, and verify that roles in the narrative match the work plan and administrative information. The Funding & Tenders Online Manual explains the submission process and participant information.
A practical sequence is to agree the topic fit and key objectives, assign provisional roles, draft the method and impact pathway, cost the corresponding work, then challenge the entire proposal as a team. The sequence may overlap, but resolving the main design questions before the final edit reduces contradictions. Joining another consortium as a partner can be a useful first experience; an organisation with sufficient capability may also coordinate its first proposal. Neither route is a requirement for the other.
Our own approach is to start as early as possible, share a work calendar until the deadline, and try to stick to it as much as possible. We have also realised that too many meetings are counterproductive. It is better to leave time for each contributor to do their work. You should not eliminate meetings altogether, but plan them sparingly.
Another lesson from our experience is that it is better to have a limited core team working on the proposal, such as 3 to 5 people, rather than involving everyone in the drafting. With too many contributors, the process becomes unmanageable. With a core team, you can still expose the work to everyone for review, but it is much more productive than assigning a paragraph to 20 different people.
How do you maintain a useful European network beyond one call?
Stay in contact around substantive work: share a relevant result, introduce a complementary organisation, contribute to a workshop or explore another topic where the partnership makes sense. Review why a collaboration did or did not work, especially after an unsuccessful proposal. A network becomes useful when people know what you can reliably contribute and when to involve you.
In our company, we keep a simple record of each organisation's expertise, prior collaboration, interests and constraints, with appropriate respect for confidentiality and data protection. A previous consortium is a starting point for future work, not a template to copy automatically; every new call requires a fresh assessment of the project and roles.
Conclusion: What makes a Horizon Europe consortium strong?
A strong consortium is eligible for its specific call, covers the skills and access its plan requires, assigns credible roles and resources, and can explain how its members will make decisions and deliver results together. Build the team around the project's needs, test those commitments during drafting, and keep the relationships that prove useful beyond one proposal. Funding remains competitive; the consortium strengthens the application when its contribution is visible in the work itself.
For the wider proposal logic, read Horizon Europe grant writing complete guide. To review common weaknesses before submission, see Why do Horizon Europe proposals fail?.