EU AI Media Platform – modular multilingual public-interest infrastructure for European news and audiovisual media (IA) - Apply AI

Who can apply:Consortia led by legal entities established in eligible Member States or Horizon Europe associated countries, typically public broadcasters, media organisations, technology providers, research centres, SMEs, cultural institutions and civil society partners working together; proposals should be industry driven and include multiple stakeholder types 1.

Programme:Horizon Europe (HORIZON) | Call: Bridging actions 2027 | Topic identifier: HORIZON-BRIDGING | Type of action: HORIZON Innovation Actions (HORIZON-IA) | Type of MGA: HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based (HORIZON-AG) | Deadline (Brussels time): 16 February 2027, 17:00 | Planned opening date: 20 October 2026 | Deadline model: single-stage | Submission: electronic via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal (Submission System).

Indicative EU contribution:Around €10 000 000 (single expected grant for this topic).

Objective:to develop, integrate and validate a modular, trustworthy and interoperable AI-enabled infrastructure to support pan-European public-interest media platform(s) offering real-time news and professional media content across EU Member States and Associated Countries. The infrastructure will harness AI for multilingual and multimodal media workflows, audiovisual processing, translation, classification, recognition, metadata interoperability, provenance, verification, adaptive and personalised user experiences, onboarding of diverse media actors, and prototypic immersive or interactive content experiences.

Concrete expected outcomes:reliable, modular and interoperable infrastructure with validated service levels and sustainability pathways; integration of AI components for multilingual and multimodal workflows (including audiovisual processing and adaptation); metadata interoperability for broadcast and streaming; social-media-facing interaction and referral functions and APIs; SDKs and documentation for third-party integration; onboarding pathways for small and local media actors; traceability and provenance mechanisms; built-in governance, safety, transparency and accountability features; validated governance and interoperability frameworks; open evaluation methods; and demonstrable coverage path towards broad European language support including low-resource languages.

Scope details:the action supports pilot(s) consolidating, integrating and validating reusable AI-enabled infrastructure components and governance arrangements of platform pilots, building on results from Horizon Europe, Digital Europe and other pilot actions. Projects must progress existing pilots toward operational validation in real-world conditions against declared service levels, include resilience and lifecycle-managed storage, define KPI frameworks and independent evaluation, ensure observability, explainability, logging and auditability for AI components, and present credible post-grant sustainability and onboarding/training plans. The infrastructure should be tested with open API approaches, provide SDKs and documentation, consider open-source approaches where relevant, and establish a multi-stakeholder governance framework including media, technology and civil society stakeholders.

Technology Readiness Level:activities are expected to start at TRL 6 and achieve TRL 8 by the end of the project (see General Annex B).

Eligible applicant types:consortia of organisations with strong technical, media and governance expertise. Typical eligible participants include public broadcasters, private media outlets, independent publishers, SMEs (tech and media), large enterprises (platform and AI providers), universities and research institutes, language-technology providers, AI developers, platform developers, content creators and creative industries, cultural and heritage institutions, civil society organisations, fact-checking and media integrity actors, rights-management organisations, and other relevant non-profit organisations involved in media/public-interest information.

Eligible countries:applicants must be legal entities established in countries listed in Annex B of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes (Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries). The Work Programme also notes that some non-EU/non-Associated countries have national arrangements to participate; applicants should consult Annex B and the Horizon Europe Programme Guide for specifics and restrictions. Projects are subject to restrictions for protection of European communication networks where applicable.

Consortium requirement:Consortium expected (industry-driven). Innovation Actions under this call are intended to be collaborative and industry-driven; proposals should present multi-stakeholder consortia bringing together public and private media outlets, AI and language-technology providers, platform developers, content creators, fact-checkers, rights-management actors and civil society. Consortium size should be justified and manageable; participation of SMEs is encouraged.

Funding type:grant (Horizon Europe grant awarded under Model Grant Agreement HORIZON-AG). Nature of support: monetary funding contribution to beneficiaries to perform the action (plus permitted non-financial support such as access to infrastructures if negotiated).

Indicative funding scale:topic indicative EU contribution around €10 000 000. The Budget Overview for the Bridging actions call lists four related topics with indicative contributions: €10 000 000 (this topic), and other topics with €15 000 000 each. The Commission indicates expected number of grants: around 1 per listed topic.

Funding rate and co-funding:standard Horizon Europe rules apply. For Innovation Actions the typical funding rate is up to 70% of eligible costs for profit-making entities and up to 100% for non-profit public bodies, research organisations and higher education establishments, subject to the Rules for Participation and specific MGA provisions. Proposers must detail budgets in the application form and demonstrate financial and operational capacity as described in General Annex C. The call text does not require additional applicant co-funding beyond normal project budget contributions, but co-financing of eligible costs by beneficiaries is generally required to reach 100% of total costs.

Submission method:single-stage open call via the EU Funding & Tenders Portal Submission System using the dedicated application form available in the Submission System. The submission system is planned to open on the date in the topic header and applicants must use the application form provided there.

Application templates and guidance:Use the standard application form (HE RIA, IA) available in the Submission System. Part B describes the proposal structure and page limits. For this call, the general application templates and the standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA) will be used with necessary adaptations. Applicants should consult the Horizon Europe Programme Guide, the Work Programme general annexes (Annex A to E) and the Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual. Model Grant Agreement HORIZON-AG and HE MGA guidance apply.

Templates:the Submission System contains the specific application form for the call. Evaluation form templates are the standard HE RIA/IA evaluation forms; these will be applied with topic-specific adaptations. Applicants should download and use the application form in the Submission System and consult the HE Programme Guide and Model Grant Agreement documents listed under Additional documents in the call page.

Evaluation and award criteria:the standard Horizon Europe award criteria (excellence, impact, quality and efficiency of implementation) and scoring thresholds described in General Annex D will be applied; consult Annex D for scoring, thresholds and ranking rules. Submission and evaluation procedures follow Annex F and the Online Manual. Indicative timeline: single-stage call with evaluation, grant preparation and signature timelines as described in Annex F; exact dates depend on the call processing but applicants should expect multiple months between submission and grant signature. The call page lists an indicative number of grants (around 1 for this topic) and the Commission will select projects in line with the ranking and any portfolio balancing rules.

Stages to completion:single-stage submission; evaluation by independent experts; possible interviews/clarifications depending on procedure; grant preparation and signature. In practice the applicant passes through 1 main submission stage and the post-evaluation administrative/grant preparation stage; no mandatory two-stage scientific evaluation is foreseen for this single-stage call.

Success rates:The call text does not specify a success rate. Horizon Europe innovation and bridging topics are competitive; the number of grants is small (around 1 for this specific topic) so success is contingent on proposal quality, alignment with scope, consortium composition and competitive ranking. The expected number of grants is one, which implies a low selection probability across all applicants.

Technical scope and technology expectations:projects must deliver AI components and infrastructure that are transparent, explainable, logged, and auditable; implement observability and traceability; support metadata interoperability for broadcast and streaming contexts; provide provenance and attribution metadata; and integrate multimodal workflows for audiovisual content (ingestion, classification, recognition, translation, linguistic analysis, adaptation and distribution). The infrastructure should support APIs and SDKs for front-end and third-party integration, social-media-facing interactions and referral functions, and where relevant agentic/AI-companion style interfaces via APIs. Projects should address accessibility, gender-responsive design, support for low-resource European languages, onboarding pathways for smaller media actors, and consider open-source development where applicable.

Required multi-stakeholder engagement:the proposal should present mechanisms to bring together public and private media outlets and publishers, broadcasters, AI and language-technology providers, platform developers, content creators and social media actors, fact-checking and integrity actors, and rights-management organisations. Cultural and heritage institutions and civil society organisations should be involved where relevant. The project should contribute to an existing or establish a structured multi-stakeholder governance framework with structured exchanges and coordination with related initiatives.

Restrictions:participation is subject to Horizon Europe General Annexes and may be subject to restrictions related to protection of European communication networks and other security/privacy considerations. Legal and financial requirements for participation, validation and exclusion are described in General Annexes B, C and G. The Work Programme includes provisions regarding restrictions on entities controlled by certain third countries in specific critical technology areas; applicants should check Annex B and topic-specific eligibility clauses.

Ethics and data:projects must comply with applicable ethics rules, data protection (GDPR) and intellectual property rights rules. Projects that process personal data must describe compliance measures in the proposal and in the ethics self-assessment.

Key practical notes for applicants:ensure consortium composition covers media, technology and governance dimensions; include commitments from public and private media actors for content onboarding; demonstrate pathways for language coverage (including low-resource languages); provide clear provenance and verification mechanisms for content; include SDKs, open APIs and documentation plans; present a credible business plan and sustainability strategy; plan for independent KPI evaluation and resilience/storage lifecycle management; and comply with Horizon Europe eligibility, ethics and data protection rules. Applicants should use the application form in the Submission System and consult General Annexes A to G, the HE Programme Guide, and the Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual.

Funding amount and scale:The indicative EU budget for this topic is €10,000,000, with around one grant expected.1 The topic text does not specify a separate topic-specific funding rate in the extracted material, so applicants should check the Horizon Europe grant rules and model grant agreement for the applicable financial setup.

Likely applicant and partner profile:The topic is especially relevant for public broadcasters, professional media outlets, independent publishers, SMEs, small local publishers, AI vendors, language technology specialists, platform developers, cultural institutions and civil society organisations.

Core requirements:Proposals should include observability, traceability and content provenance by design, with transparent and accountable AI practices such as documentation, explainability, logging and evaluation to support audit, redress and oversight. They should also provide open APIs, SDKs and documentation, interoperability for broadcast and streaming metadata, onboarding pathways for smaller players, and a credible multi-stakeholder governance framework.

Expected consortium features:Applicants should be able to demonstrate a mechanism that brings together public and private media outlets, publishers, broadcasters, AI and language technology providers, platform developers, content creators, social media actors, fact-checking and integrity actors, and rights-management organisations. Cultural and heritage institutions and civil society organisations may also be involved where relevant.