GRAIL Genesis Open Call | Up to €100K in funding per project

Genesis Open Call

Up to €100K per project to build the data and tools that Physical AI needs

Robots need better data to learn useful tasks, adapt to changing conditions and recover when something goes wrong. The GRAIL Genesis Open Call aims to fund at least 10 projects that create robotics datasets, make data collection more accessible or develop tools to evaluate how well AI-powered robots perform.

Bring your expertise in robotics data, sensing, data-collection technologies or benchmarking to contribute to the development of GRAIL technologies and capabilities, with integration requirements depending on the specific topic.

Genesis is the first of three GRAIL open calls. The overall programme allocates +€10 million to support at least 40 third-party projects. Each entity can receive up to €500K in total across the three calls, subject to the specific conditions of each call.

SUBMISSION PERIOD

Start: applications open on 9 November 2026 at 9.00h CET

Deadline: applications close on 10 February 2027 at 17.00h CET

Apply now

The call at a glance

Maximum grant: Up to €100,000 per selected project, submitted by one legal entity
Total call budget: €1 million, targeting at least 10 projects
Funding rate and payment: 100% funding rate; lump-sum grant paid against agreed milestones
Duration: Up to eight months
Application: Online through application platform, in English.
Number of submissions: Up to three applications per applicant, each addressing a different topic

Read the terms and conditions

Read the technical guidelines

What are we looking for

The GRAIL Genesis Open Call supports projects that help close the robotics data gap through high-quality multimodal datasets, affordable data-collection tools and reproducible benchmarks.

Eligible activities include:

Generalist data foundations

Multimodal datasets covering different robots, tasks and environments, including grasping, pushing and object manipulation.

Democratizing data capture

Affordable, easy-to-use data-collection tools, including sensor kits, mobile apps and gamified platforms.

Lab-scale generalization stress tests

Tests to evaluate how robots adapt to changing conditions, such as lighting, clutter and human presence.

Open benchmarking tools

Shared tests and evaluation methods to measure and compare robot performance consistently.

Applicants may submit up to three applications, each addressing a different topic.

Call topics at a glance

Topic 1

Dexterous and precise tasks with robotic hands

Topic 2

Long-horizon stationary robot tasks

Topic 3

Long-horizon mobile robot tasks

Topic 4

Industrial Robot Tool-Use Tasks

Topic 5

Egocentric Video Data Collection for Dexterous Tasks

Topic 6

Low-Cost Multimodal Capture for Contact-Rich Manipulation

Topic 7

Plan–Fail–Repair: Gamified Collection of Robot Reasoning Data

Topic 8

Open generalization-stress benchmarking kit: physical stress artefacts, sweep protocol and a portable evaluation harness with reliability and human-in-the-loop reporting

What selected projects receive

Selected projects can receive up to €100K at a 100% funding rate and join the GRAIL Genesis Support Programme for up to eight months.

Technical mentoring from the GRAIL ecosystem.
Support for the development and integration of datasets or tools into the GRAIL ecosystem.
Funding is paid in instalments after the successful and timely completion of each stage.
At least 15% of each payment is retained until around nine months after the end of the GRAIL project.

Who can apply

Type of organisation

SMEs (including startups), mid-caps, large companies, universities and Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs)

Single applicant

Applications must be submitted by one legally established entity. Consortia are not eligible.

Eligible countries

Applicants must be legally established before the application deadline in an EU Member State, Iceland, Norway, Canada, Israel, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland or the United Kingdom. Ownership, control and security restrictions in the Terms and Conditions also apply.

Technical profile

Applicants must be data providers, developers of data-collection tools (hardware or software), or developers of benchmarking methodologies, depending on the selected topic.

How to apply

Check your eligibility

Review the Open Call Terms and Conditions to understand how to successfully apply to the Open Call.

Choose one topic

Read its complete scope, required data and deliverables in Annex 1, together with the Technical Guidelines

Prepare your proposal

Explain the problem, your contribution to GRAIL, the planned dataset or tool, your team, work plan, budget and measurable results. Describe data quality, documentation, access and applicable legal requirements.

Complete the online application in English

Fill in all mandatory sections through the application portal here. Submit only the materials requested in the application form.

Submission

Before 10 February 2027 at 17:00 Brussels time. You can edit your submission until the deadline. Applications by email are not accepted.

Start your application

Need help with your application?

For questions about the call, eligibility, the application process or the submission platform, contact grail.helpdesk@fundingbox.com If you encounter a technical problem, include your username, contact details, a description of the issue and relevant screenshots.

Helpdesk replies are for information and do not amend the Terms and Conditions. This page is a summary, read the full published call documents before applying.

Documents and useful links:

ABOUT THE PROJECT

GRAIL stands for Generative Robotics & AI for EU Industrial Leadership. The project is developing a trustworthy European foundation model for robotics: a shared AI base intended to support different robots, tasks and industrial settings.

The GRAIL project has received funding from the Horizon Europe programme under grant agreement No. 101298421.

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Photo credits: Neura Robotics