WoodStock Grants to support climate-smart wood construction solutions

The construction sector is central to Europe's climate transition. At the same time, significant volumes of hardwood, residual wood, low-quality wood, and damaged wood remain until today underutilised. Unlocking this potential can reduce waste, strengthen local value chains, and create sustainable economic opportunities. The WoodStock grants support this transition by supporting one-year projects that combine innovation, circularity, and community engagement — embedding the New European Bauhaus (NEB) values of together, sustainable, and beautiful into practical construction solutions.

Funding may be used for one or more of the following activities:

• Demonstration: Prototyping, experimental set-up of innovations related to WoodStock.

• Testing: Physical and mechanical validation, certification preparation.

• Co-creation: Activities with local actors and users to improve the solution and embed them in the local value chain and community.

• Training: Workshops to develop new skills and knowledge.

• Dissemination: Communication about the solutions to a wide audience (including video production) (max. 20% of total budget).,

Eligible expenses may include equipment, laboratory testing, materials, logistics, multimedia production, and staff costs related to the above-mentioned activities.

Selected projects are expected to:

• Develop climate-smart wood construction solutions beyond TRL5.

• Jointly organise one co-creation session with a WoodStock Living Lab in the Netherlands, France, Slovenia, Poland, Ireland or Norway.

• Document successful and unsuccessful innovation steps they have made, and lessons learned throughout the process.

• Share experiences and lessons learned with the WoodStock consortium.

• Contribute to the WoodBook and the European Wood Construction Observatory.

• Align dissemination with the WoodStock communication partner and contribute to WoodStock communication materials by providing input.

For questions about the call, please contact grants@woodstockproject.eu.

The WoodStock Grants offer a unique opportunity for SMEs, start-ups, non-profit organisations, or consortia led by one of these to make better use of underutilised wood in construction and develop climate-smart wood construction solutions beyond Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5.

Through this call, four selected projects will receive up to € 50,000 each to test, validate and scale up innovative zero-waste solutions in real-world contexts. The committee will award a maximum of one grant per EU Member State (or Horizon Europe associated country), based on the country of the lead applicant only. One project will be granted per underutilised wood source type (hardwood, low-quality wood, damaged wood, post-consumer wood and residual wood). If a wood source type has no application that reaches 3 points on every evaluation criterion, the overall second-best proposal from among the other underutilised wood source types will be granted instead. By joining the WoodStock project, grant recipients will contribute to activating the European wood construction market and to demonstrating the feasibility and scalability of circular approaches across the value chain.

€ 30,000 will be paid upon signing the agreement. A progress report is required after six months, and a final report after one year. The final payment will be made following positive evaluation.

The selection committee may adjust proposed budgets if necessary (without exceeding € 50,000).

Funding restrictions defined by the European Commission or the Research Executive Agency for Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) may also apply.

In case an SME is involved in multiple project applications, please be aware that the total amount of funding received within the WoodStock grants cannot exceed € 60,000, in accordance with Financial Support to Third Parties regulations.

Estimated timeline:

• 15 December 2026, 17:00 CET: deadline for submitting

• January 2027: evaluation period

• February 2027: information to applicants

• February - March 2027: signature of the grant agreements

• March - April 2027 (at the latest): starting date of the actions

• After half a year: progress report

• After 1 year: final reporting, including a financial report

• September 2028: reports of the actions evaluated

• October 2028: final payments