Horizon Europe Proposal Template and Page Limits: What Changed for 2026-2027

The Short Answer

For the 2026-2027 Work Programme, a full Horizon Europe application is limited to 40 pages — covering the title, list of participants, and sections 1, 2 and 3 together. Coordination and Support Actions get 25 pages. Topics using lump sum funding get 45 pages (RIA and IA) or 28 pages (CSA). First-stage applications in a two-stage call get 10 pages.

Action type	Standard limit	Lump sum limit
Research and Innovation Action (RIA)	40 pages	45 pages
Innovation Action (IA)	40 pages	45 pages
Coordination and Support Action (CSA)	25 pages	28 pages
Programme Co-fund Action	65 pages	—
First-stage application (two-stage calls)	10 pages	—

Everything counts — tables, figures and references are an integral part of those sections. After the deadline, excess pages are automatically made invisible and evaluators never see them.

Sources used throughout:

• Horizon Europe Work Programme 2026-2027 — General Annexes
• Standard Application Form (HE RIA and IA), V5.1 – 22.01.2026

What Actually Changed for 2026-2027

The application form has a version history, and it records exactly what happened. Version 5.0, published 5 November 2025, is the one that matters:

Adapted according to WP 2026-2027 simplifications. Simplified section 2.1, 3.1 and reduced page limit. Tags removed

Version 5.1 (22 January 2026) followed with formatting updates to the section 2.3 tables and clearer "remove if not used" instructions.

Three concrete changes for anyone reusing an older draft:

1. The page limit came down. If you are working from a proposal drafted before November 2025, it was written against a longer allowance.
2. Sections 2.1 and 3.1 were simplified. Requirements were reduced, not just reworded.
3. Tags were removed. The structured tags that appeared in the V3.0–V4.0 templates are gone.

Version 4.0 (December 2024) had already removed references to the Do No Significant Harm principle and AI robustness, and simplified the data management plan requirements. Those changes carry through.

Always download the template from the submission system for your specific call. The version bundled with your call is the one that applies.

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The Full Section Structure and Its Page Budget

Each of sections 1, 2 and 3 corresponds to one evaluation criterion. The template gives indicative page allocations — and they add up exactly to the limit.

Section	Corresponds to	Indicative pages
Title and list of participants	—	1
1. Excellence	Excellence	—
1.1 Objectives and ambition	Excellence	4
1.2 Methodology	Excellence	14
2. Impact	Impact	—
2.1 Project's pathways towards impact	Impact	3
2.2 Measures to maximise impact — dissemination, exploitation, communication	Impact	3
2.3 Summary (optional — remove if unused)	Impact	—
3. Quality and efficiency of the implementation	Implementation	—
3.1 Work plan and resources	Implementation	12 (17 for lump sum)
3.2 Capacity of participants and consortium as a whole	Implementation	3
Total	-	= 40 (45 lump sum)

Two things fall out of this table immediately.

Methodology is the largest single block in the proposal. At 14 indicative pages it is more than a third of the document — larger than the entire Impact section. Proposals that arrive with four pages of methodology and eleven of impact narrative have misread the template, not merely misjudged the balance.

The lump sum allowance is not general. The extra five pages go specifically to section 3.1, which expands from 12 to 17 pages, because that is where the work package descriptions justifying the budget live. It is not five free pages for a better introduction.

These allocations are explicitly indicative — the limit applies to the total, not section by section. But they tell you how the Commission expects the weight to be distributed, and evaluators read against that expectation.

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The Formatting Rules Are Enforceable

The template sets out formatting conditions, and they exist specifically to stop people gaming the page limit.

• Reference font: Times New Roman (Windows), Times/Times New Roman (Apple), or Nimbus Roman No. 9 L (Linux).
• Minimum font size: 11 points.
• Standard character spacing and a minimum of single line spacing.
• These apply to body text, including text inside tables.

Other font choices are "not advised" and permitted only under cumulative conditions: the font must be legible, and its use must not significantly shorten the proposal compared with the reference font. In other words, a narrow font chosen to fit more words is not a formatting preference — it is a breach of the condition.

Headers, footnotes, captions and formulas may deviate, but must remain legible.

The hyperlink rule

This one costs proposals every year:

The proposal is a self-contained document. Experts will be instructed to ignore hyperlinks to information that is specifically designed to expand the proposal, thus circumventing the page limit.

A link to a supplementary methods document, an extended results appendix, or a partner's detailed CV page does not extend your proposal. It is content the evaluator has been told not to read. Anything that matters must be inside the page limit.

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What Happens If You Go Over

The enforcement is automatic and depends entirely on timing.

Before the deadline: if you upload an over-long proposal you get an automatic warning and an invitation to shorten and re-upload. No harm done.

After the deadline: excess pages "will be automatically made invisible, and will not be taken into consideration by the experts."

There is no negotiation and no human judgement. If your consortium description and risk table sit on pages 41 and 42, the evaluators assessing your implementation criterion simply never see them — and the criterion is scored on what remains.

The template also adds a note that is easy to skim past but reflects how experts actually read:

Please, do not consider the page limit as a target! It is in your interest to keep your text as concise as possible, since experts rarely view unnecessarily long proposals in a positive light.

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The Line That Should Change How You Write

Buried in the template's opening instructions is the single most consequential sentence for applicants:

Please be aware that proposals will be evaluated as they were submitted, rather than on their potential if certain changes were to be made. This means that only proposals that successfully address all the required aspects will have a chance of being funded. There will be no possibility for significant changes to content, budget and consortium composition during grant preparation.

Three implications:

1. There is no fixing it later. Grant preparation corrects obvious errors and compliance issues. It does not add a missing partner, restructure a work plan, or rebuild a budget.
2. Coverage beats polish. A proposal that addresses every required aspect adequately outranks one that covers most of them beautifully. Sections 1, 2 and 3 map to criteria, and an unaddressed aspect is an unscored aspect.
3. Cutting to fit is a content decision. When you trim for the page limit, you are choosing what evaluators will score you on.

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How to Cut Without Losing Score

Since the limit is fixed and every element counts against it, the question is what to cut.

Cut first:

• Background and state-of-the-art narrative beyond what is needed to establish the gap. Evaluators are domain experts.
• Restatements of the call text. They know what the topic says.
• Decorative figures — diagrams that illustrate a concept the reader already accepts.
• Repeated partner descriptions across sections 3.1 and 3.2.

Do not cut:

• Anything responding to a required aspect of a criterion. This is the only truly unrecoverable loss.
• Methodology detail. It is the largest allocation for a reason, and vagueness there is a direct Excellence penalty.
• The risk table and mitigation measures.
• Justification of the requested resources — this is scored under implementation.

Reclaim space by:

• Merging figures that make one point together.
• Replacing prose lists with compact tables, remembering that table text follows the same font and spacing rules.
• Removing all watermarked instruction pages before submitting. The template explicitly tells you to.
• Deleting section 2.3 if you are not using it — V5.1 added the "remove if not used" instruction precisely because people were leaving empty scaffolding in place.

For how each section maps to the aspects evaluators actually score, see our guide to the Horizon Europe evaluation criteria.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Do references and figures count towards the 40 pages?

Yes. All tables, figures, references and any other element pertaining to sections 1, 2 and 3 "must be included as an integral part of these sections and are thus counted against this page limit."

What is the page limit for a first-stage proposal?

10 pages. First-stage applications are evaluated on Excellence and Impact only, and only the aspects shown in bold in the criteria tables are considered.

Can I use a smaller font to fit more content?

No. The minimum is 11 points, with standard character spacing and at least single line spacing, and these apply inside tables too. A different font is permitted only if it is legible and does not significantly shorten the proposal relative to the reference font.

What happens to pages beyond the limit?

Before the deadline you get an automatic warning and can re-upload. After the deadline, excess pages are automatically made invisible and are not considered by the experts.

Can I link to extra material to get around the limit?

No. Experts are instructed to ignore hyperlinks to information designed to expand the proposal. The proposal is treated as a self-contained document.

Does the lump sum page allowance apply to the whole proposal?

The limit rises to 45 pages for RIA and IA, but the extra allocation sits in section 3.1, which goes from 12 to 17 indicative pages, to accommodate the work package detail that justifies the lump sum budget.

Which template version should I use?

The one bundled with your specific call in the submission system. The current published version for RIA and IA is V5.1, dated 22 January 2026. Templates from before November 2025 were written against different page limits and section requirements.

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Summary

• 40 pages for a full RIA/IA application; 25 for CSA; 65 for Programme Co-fund; 45/28 for lump sum topics; 10 for a first-stage application.
• Version 5.0 (Nov 2025) cut the page limit, simplified sections 2.1 and 3.1, and removed tags — check the version of any reused text.
• Sections 1, 2 and 3 map one-to-one onto Excellence, Impact and Implementation. Methodology (1.2) is the single largest block at 14 pages.
• 11pt minimum, reference serif font, standard spacing — inside tables too.
• Hyperlinks that expand the proposal are ignored. The document must be self-contained.
• Over-long proposals get a warning before the deadline and silent truncation after it.
• Proposals are evaluated as submitted. There is no fixing content, budget or consortium during grant preparation.

The page limit is not an obstacle to work around. It is the Commission telling you how much of your project an evaluator will read — and the proposals that win are the ones that decided deliberately what goes in that space.

Last updated: August 2026.