The European Commission has amended the Horizon Europe 2026–2027 Work Programme, allocating an additional €500 million to the programme for 2026 and 2027. As part of the amended Work Programme, two new support mechanisms have been added to the New European Bauhaus (NEB) Programme to support the sustainable and circular transformation of the construction sector and strengthen the development of the NEB Academy.
1. HORIZON-NEB-2027-01-REGEN-04 – Enabling environments for a sustainable and circular construction sector
This topic supports the development of enabling environments that facilitate the development and deployment of sustainable and circular construction solutions. It aims to develop and demonstrate living labs, testbeds and regulatory sandboxes.
These environments will enable companies in the construction sector to test, validate and prepare for the deployment of innovative construction solutions aligned with NEB principles. The data, experience and evidence generated through these environments are also expected to contribute to the development of replicable solutions and inform policy processes.
The results of projects funded under this topic are expected to contribute to the three pillars of the NEB Academy: capacity building and skills development, knowledge and research, and innovation and business development.
2. NEB Academy Support Centre
The second mechanism is a €2 million public procurement for the establishment of a Support Centre to coordinate and support the activities of the NEB Academy. The Centre will contribute to connecting skills development activities, research and innovation, and experimentation in real-world settings.
Launched in 2022, the NEB Academy aims to upskill and reskill professionals working in the construction ecosystem and related sectors. The Academy focuses on promoting sustainable and circular construction practices, the use of innovative and bio-based materials, and the integration of digital technologies into construction processes. The European Commission aims to further develop the NEB Academy as a core structure bringing together knowledge and research, safe experimentation and innovation, and skills development within the NEB framework.
This approach is intended to ensure that results from research and innovation activities are channelled into training and capacity-building activities, while lessons learned from applied innovation feed back into knowledge generation. In this way, the aim is to establish an integrated learning system that supports the sustainable and circular transformation of the construction sector, enables continuous learning and facilitates the development of solutions that can be replicated in different contexts.
Courses offered through the NEB Academy can be accessed here.