The ERC aims to encourage the highest quality research in Europe through competitive funding and to support investigator-driven frontier research across all fields. The ERC funds ground-breaking basic research projects across all fields of science to support European leadership in world-class research. Support is given to outstanding Principal Investigators (PI) based on the scientific excellence of their project proposal.
ERC offers 4 types of grants:
Starting Grant - tailored to researchers of any nationality with 2-7 years of experience since completion of PhD, a scientific track record showing great promise and an excellent research proposal can apply.
Consolidator Grant - tailored to researchers of any nationality with 7-12 years of experience since completion of PhD, a scientific track record showing great promise and an excellent research proposal can apply.
Advanced Grant - Applicants for the ERC Advanced Grants - called Principal Investigators (PI) - are expected to be active researchers who have a track-record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years.
Synergy Grant - tailored to a group of two to maximum four Principal Investigators (PIs) working together and bringing different skills and resources to tackle ambitious research problems.
Lastly, ERC offers grants for - Proof of concept - The Principal Investigator must be able to demonstrate the relation between the idea to be taken to proof of concept and the ERC frontier research project.
NOTE: ELIGIBILITY CAN BE EXTENDED UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES, SUCH AS FOR MATERNITY/PATERNITY LEAVE, CLINICAL TRAINING, MILITARY SERVICE AND LONG-TERM ILLNESS
The general budget of the ERC from 2021 to 2027 is over EUR 16 billion as part of the Horizon Europe programme.
