Artikkelit

Focus on research cooperation and mobility – What is there for Brazil and the LAC region in Horizon Europe?

04.06.2025

Focus on research cooperation and mobility – What is there for Brazil and the LAC region in Horizon Europe?

All Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries are eligible to participate in Horizon Europe, but not all - such as Brazil, Chile and Mexico - are automatically eligible for funding. Despite this, Brazil has strengthened its participation by allocating significant self-funding. The work programme 2025 has been released with many interesting upcoming calls encouraging the participation from the LAC region. Brazil is for instance funding their entities’ participation under the MSCA Staff Exchanges 2025 call and entities from Brazil, Chile and Mexico are eligible for funding in various calls targeting Research Infrastructures.

Horizon Europe, the European Union programme for research and innovation, has released their main work programme 2025 and most of the calls are published on the EU Commission’s (EC) Funding and Tenders portal. None of the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries is associated to Horizon Europe, but they can participate as “third countries” in most of the calls. 

Most LAC institutions are also fully eligible for funding in the Horizon Europe calls, except for those from Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Panama and Uruguay, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Saint Kitts and Navis, Trinidad and Tobago, that are not eligible to automatic funding by the EC but are expected to fund their own participation. However, funding can exceptionally be provided for institutions from these countries if the country is explicitly identified in the specific call as being eligible for funding, or if their participation can be considered essential for implementing the project, for example in view of their outstanding competence/expertise, access to particular research infrastructures, geographical environments or particular data. In addition, Brazil and Mexico has co-funding mechanisms with the EC to enable their institutions’ wider participation in Horizon Europe. 

In May 2025, Euraxess-LAC published an indicative list of calls of Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 with focus on International Cooperation, Brazil and Latin America. Please note that links to all programmes and calls mentioned in this newsletter, as well as links to the full indicative list of calls and to a webinar in Spanish on the LAC participation in Horizon Europe can be found in the end of the newsletter.

Horizon Europe Work Package 2025 calls relevant to the LAC region
Individual researchers from all LAC countries can take part in and are fully eligible for funding from mobility programmes under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) and European Research Council (ERC) grants schemes. Upcoming calls for individual mobility in 2025:

In addition to individual research mobility grants, MSCA funds institutional cooperation to develop doctoral and postdoctoral training as well as mobility of research and innovation personnel through the following programmes with upcoming calls (see eligibility of LAC institutions above):

The Horizon Europe funding for Research Infrastructures aims to enable researchers from the EU access to best research infrastructures in the world. For this purpose, in some calls, entities from Brazil, Mexico and Chile, among other relevant third countries, are exceptionally eligible for funding from the EC. Following calls are open with deadline on 18 September 2025: 

In the funding for Collaborative Projects, there are various upcoming calls with deadline in the fall 2025 encouraging participation of the LAC countries, or more specifically institutions from MERCOSUR or CARIFORUM, or more widely from the Global South. These calls focus, for instance, on the following topics (see more details in the full indicative list of calls in the end): 

Brazil’s participation in Horizon Europe and cooperation with Finland

Brazil has strengthened its participation in EU’s research and innovation funding programmes for research and innovation although it is not any more automatically eligible for funding under the current programme. Brazil’s participation and investment in Horizon Europe has increased as the programme has progressed, ranking the 6th in the world in terms of third country participation. For comparison, in the previous Horizon 2020 programme Brazil was fully eligible for EC funding and ranked 7th. 

Also, Finland’s collaboration with Brazil under EU’s framework programmes has increased. Under Horizon Europe, Finland has the 6th most collaboration with Brazil among the “third countries”, whereas in Horizon2020 Brazil ranked only the 11th for Finland. In Horizon Europe, Brazil and Finland have thus far 62 partnerships in 23 projects, involving 25 partner institutions from Finland and 35 from Brazil. Most of the partnerships address the thematic priority of Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment or are under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) to develop doctoral training or researcher mobility in a great variety of research areas from indigenous studies to health and clean energy. 

Under the EU-Brazil arrangement, Brazil funds the participation of its researchers in selected joint projects, partnerships and missions. Brazil's participation in Horizon Europe and in the joint funding schemes is coordinated and funded by the Brazilian National Council of State Funding Agencies (CONFAP), National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Funding Authority for Studies and Projects (FINEP). 

Brazil offers also specific funding to connect individual researchers with the European programmes. In 2024, CONFAP coordinated funding for collaboration between Brazilian researchers and researchers funded by the European Research Council (ERC). The funding enabled research visits and temporary joining of ERC-funded research groups in Europe in a variety of scientific disciplines for 6-12 months. It is yet to be seen if a similar scheme will be opened also in 2025. 

In 2025, CONFAP coordinates funding for Brazilian entities’ participation in projects under the MSCA Staff Exchanges 2025 call for research and innovation staff mobility. Brazilian institutions can also participate in all institutional MSCA cooperation with self-funding. 

Brazil currently participates in four EU partnerships listed below, in which Finland is also involved (please note that not all partner countries participate in all calls, so it is important to check the relevant call criteria in this regard):

Seeing Brazil’s increasing investment in EU collaboration and also its strategic position in regard to many of the priority topics for Europe, such as climate, biodiversity, bioeconomy, health, freshwater, blue economy, critical raw materials, research infrastructures, and many others, there should be much potential also in the future for increasing collaboration with Brazil under the EU framework for research and innovation. 

Links to open or upcoming calls:

Horizon Europe funding for Research Infrastructures open for Brazil, Chile and Mexico, deadline on 18 September 2025:

Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA):

Horizon Europe’s co-funding partnerships including Brazilian and Finnish participation:

More information: 

Text: Johanna Kivimäki
Photo: Horizon in Jericoacoara, Ceará, March 2024, Johanna Kivimäki

Takaisin