Moonshot Flanders launches 2026 Call for breakthrough climate innovations
Moonshot Flanders has officially launched its Call 2026, inviting research and knowledge institutes to submit new project ideas that help Flemish industry drastically reduce CO₂ emissions. With this call, the long-term innovation programme once again seeks breakthrough technologies that can turn climate ambitions into concrete climate action.
Through Moonshot Flanders, the Flemish Government invests in long-term innovative research that can transform industrial processes, products and value chains and support the shift towards a circular and carbon-neutral industry.
The Flemish industry, particularly the refining, chemical and iron and steel sectors, plays a central role in the transition to a climate-neutral society. While these sectors currently account for a significant proportion of CO₂ emissions, they also possess the expertise and capacity to drive meaningful change by developing and implementing transformative technologies that will help to achieve climate neutrality.
The Moonshot Flanders Call 2026 provides a clear framework for this effort. For each research path, the Call document outlines the programme’s ambitions, key challenges and promising research areas. It helps applicants identify opportunities for high-impact innovation and explains the requirements for building strong project proposals. Both early-stage innovation projects, focused on more fundamental industrially relevant research, and later-stage innovation projects, closer to industrial implementation, are eligible.
In 2026, Moonshot Flanders will support projects with a total budget of 15 million euros. Within this amount, 5 million euros is reserved as a dedicated priority budget for later-stage innovation projects, continuing the approach used in the 2025 Call. This ensures that promising technologies can move faster from the lab towards industrial implementation.
Project ideas are first submitted as short pre-proposals by consortia of research groups. After an initial selection, the most promising ideas are further developed into full project proposals. These are evaluated by independent scientific experts, industry representatives, and the Flemish Agency for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO), ensuring both scientific excellence and real-world impact. The Moonshot Flanders programme is coordinated by Catalisti with the active support of Flux50.
Pre-proposals for the Moonshot Flanders Call 2026 are expected by Friday, 30 January 2026 (23:59) via the online submission form. All documents and templates, as well as more background information on the programme, are available on the Moonshot Flanders website, here.
If you have any questions regarding the Moonshot Flanders Call 2026, please contact moonshot
catalisti.be (moonshot[at]catalisti[dot]be).