Organised by consulting needs: finding opportunities, writing proposals, managing clients and delivering projects
Horizon Europe consultants work in a unique environment. Unlike beneficiaries, they often support multiple clients simultaneously, switching between different funding programmes, proposal deadlines and collaborative projects.
Their software needs therefore extend beyond proposal writing. Consultants must identify relevant calls for clients, prepare competitive applications efficiently, coordinate multiple stakeholders and monitor several projects in parallel.
This guide reviews some of the most useful software solutions for Horizon Europe consultants, organised by the different stages of a consulting engagement.
1. Grant Search & Opportunity Discovery
Consultants spend a significant amount of time identifying suitable funding opportunities for clients. Efficient funding discovery can save hours of manual research and improve client responsiveness.
Grant 360 – Grant Radar
Grant Radar helps consultants quickly identify relevant funding opportunities across Horizon Europe and other programmes.
It allows consultants to:
- Search funding opportunities
- Match calls with client profiles
- Save opportunities for different clients
- Monitor newly published calls
Best for: Consultants managing multiple clients across different funding programmes.
Grantbites
Grantbites provides a structured funding database combined with AI-assisted funding search and grant tracking. It also offers dedicated features for grant consultants, including lead generation through its Grant Expert Marketplace.
Best for: Consultants looking to combine funding discovery with business development.
AISEMA
AISEMA focuses on Horizon Europe funding intelligence.
Its semantic search capabilities help consultants:
- Analyse funding topics
- Identify relevant calls
- Explore previously funded projects
- Discover potential consortium partners
Best for: Consultants performing strategic opportunity analysis for Horizon Europe clients.
2. Proposal Writing & Proposal Review
Proposal preparation remains one of the core activities of most Horizon Europe consultants.
Grant 360 – Grant Genius
Grant Genius supports consultants throughout proposal development by helping them:
- Draft proposal sections
- Improve proposal quality
- Maintain consistency across documents
- Accelerate repetitive writing tasks
Because consultants often prepare several proposals simultaneously, AI can significantly reduce drafting time while allowing experts to focus on strategy and client-specific content.
Best for: Consultants preparing multiple Horizon Europe proposals every year.
WinGrants AI
WinGrants AI is designed specifically for Horizon Europe proposal generation and evaluation.
It combines AI-assisted drafting with proposal scoring and redrafting workflows aligned with Horizon Europe evaluation criteria.
Best for: Consultants looking for an AI-first proposal drafting workflow.
Review IQ
Review IQ specialises in proposal assessment before submission.
It helps consultants:
- Simulate evaluator feedback
- Identify weaknesses
- Improve proposal competitiveness
- Perform structured quality reviews
Best for: Consultants providing proposal review services.
Opaly
Opaly focuses on collaborative proposal preparation.
Its collaborative environment allows multiple contributors to coordinate proposal development while maintaining document organisation and version control.
Best for: Multi-consultant teams and large collaborative proposals.
3. Project Management After Grant Award
Many consultants continue supporting clients after funding has been secured.
Grant 360 – Grant Planner
Grant Planner helps consultants support project implementation through:
- Work package planning
- Deliverable tracking
- Consortium coordination
- Timeline management
Because consultants frequently work across several client projects simultaneously, Grant Planner provides a structured overview without becoming unnecessarily complex.
Best for: Consultants supporting Horizon Europe implementation.
EMDESK
EMDESK remains one of the most comprehensive Horizon Europe project management platforms.
Its integrated approach covers budgeting, reporting, collaboration and project monitoring within a single environment.
Best for: Consulting firms managing numerous Horizon Europe projects.
Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project remains useful for scheduling and planning.
However, consultants generally require additional tools for Horizon Europe-specific reporting, collaboration and consortium management.
Best for: Consultants already working within Microsoft environments.
OpenProject
OpenProject provides a flexible European open-source alternative for project planning.
It supports:
- Task management
- Milestones
- Resource planning
- Self-hosting
Best for: Consultants prioritising digital sovereignty and open-source software.
4. Managing Multiple Clients
Consultants rarely work on a single proposal.
They must coordinate multiple customers, deadlines, review cycles and internal workloads.
ClickUp
ClickUp is often used as a central operating system for consulting operations, especially in firms managing many parallel Horizon Europe clients.
It is particularly strong for:
1. Client portfolio structuring
- Each client can be organised as a Space or Folder
- Nested tasks allow separation by proposal, call or work package
- Custom fields can store funding programme, deadline, budget or consortium size
2. Cross-client dashboards
- Global dashboards show all active proposals across clients
- Consultants can filter by deadline, priority or funding programme
- Useful for identifying workload peaks across Horizon Europe cut-off dates
3. Automation of repetitive consulting workflows
- Automatic reminders for client feedback deadlines
- Status changes (e.g. “draft → under review → submitted”)
- Notifications for approaching submission dates
4. Time and workload management
- Time tracking per client or proposal
- Workload views to avoid overcommitment
- Capacity planning across multiple engagements
👉 Best for: consulting firms that need a highly customisable, all-in-one operational system.
Asana
Asana is typically used for structured and standardised workflow management, especially in teams where consistency is more important than deep customisation.
It is particularly effective for:
1. Standardised proposal workflows
- Predefined templates for Horizon Europe proposals
- Clear stages: idea → drafting → internal review → client review → submission
- Ensures every consultant follows the same process
2. Team coordination
- Task assignment across consultants, writers and reviewers
- Clear ownership of each proposal section
- Reduced duplication of work in multi-consultant teams
3. Timeline and dependency tracking
- Visual timelines for proposal development
- Dependencies between tasks (e.g. budget before final narrative)
- Helps avoid bottlenecks close to deadlines
👉 Best for: consulting teams that prioritise clarity, structure and repeatable processes over heavy customisation.
Monday.com
Monday.com is often chosen for visual pipeline and business development management, especially in consulting firms that treat grant consulting as part of a broader CRM-like system.
It is particularly strong for:
1. Client and opportunity pipeline (CRM-style view)
- Each client or opportunity is a board item
- Status tracking from lead → active → submitted → funded
- Easy visualisation of conversion rates
2. High-level portfolio overview
- Dashboards showing all active Horizon Europe engagements
- Revenue tracking per client or project
- Strategic overview for management teams
3. Custom reporting and executive dashboards
- Visual KPIs (success rate, workload, pipeline value)
- Filters by programme, sector or consultant
- Useful for internal business development decisions
👉 Best for: consulting firms that want strong visibility on both delivery and business development performance.
Final Thoughts
Successful Horizon Europe consultants combine expertise with efficiency.
No single platform addresses every aspect of consulting, from opportunity scouting to proposal writing and project delivery. The most effective firms therefore build a software ecosystem that reflects the services they provide and the needs of their clients.
As AI, automation and digital collaboration continue to reshape the grant consulting profession, consultants who combine specialised Horizon Europe expertise with the right software tools will be better positioned to deliver greater value while managing more projects with the same team.