Reliability of age assessment methods in the context of security and border management

Open EU call topic HORIZON-CL3-2026-01-BM-03 · HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions. Part of call HORIZON-CL3-2026-01: Civil Security for Society 2026. Next deadline 2026-11-05. Topic page: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/HORIZON-CL3-2026-01-BM-03

Expected Outcome: Project results are expected to contribute to some or all of the following expected outcomes: - Improved protection of minors, including by more reliable age assessments and by minimising the use of intrusive age assessment methods; - Improved adaptation, preparedness and cooperation of authorities in the fight against human trafficking; - Expanded European-based knowledge on reliability, accuracy and effectiveness of age assessment methods.

Scope: Many unaccompanied children and young persons arriving at the external EU borders and seeking asylum, lack official documents showing their identity and age. Age assessment methods are important as they contribute to the determination of, for example, where an individual will be initially housed and what services, supports, and legal processes they will receive to ensure protection and, if applicable, child protection. In other cases, minors are victim of trafficking of human beings (THB) criminal activities, either across the EU external borders, or within the EU borders. In other cases again, age assessment methods are necessary for law enforcement investigations on protecting children, forensic investigation, and/or the identification of victims. No age assessment method can offer a 100% reliability. Different approaches have different sensitivity and specificity, and different sample sizes and representativeness, and some approaches are based on a non-European knowledge base. Furthermore, there is considerable variation in methods of age assessment. Methods may use approaches as diverse as interviews, psychological assessments and other holistic approaches; medical approaches such as…