ERC in a nutshell

The European Research Council (ERC) supports ground-breaking projects and researchers at progressive stages of development.

The ERC Starting Grant (€1.5 million) is allocated for five years to promising researchers starting their own independent research team or programme. For mid-career researchers, there is the ERC Consolidator Grant (€2 million, over five years). The ERC Advanced Grant (€2.5 million) is a five-year grant allocated to researchers whose ground-breaking work opens up new directions in their field.

Synergy Grant Support (€10 million for 6 years) is for a small group of two to four Principal Investigators to jointly address ambitious research problems that could not be addressed by the individual Principal Investigators and their teams working alone.

The ERC Proof of Concept funding is made available only to those who already have an ERC award to establish proof of concept of an idea that was generated in the course of their ERC-funded projects.

Deadlines and Regulations

The ERC Work Programme 2024 indicates the following calendar:

2024
 Starting Grants Consolidator Grants Advanced Grants Synergy Grants Proof of Concept Grant
Call opens 11/07/2023 12/09/2023 29/05/2024 12/07/2023 16/11/2023
Call closes 24/10/2023 12/12/2023 29/08/2024 08/11/2023

14/03/2024

17/09/2024

All information pertaining to the ERC grants is available here: https://erc.europa.eu/

Here is a list of links with important background information regarding the ERC calls:

Information for Applicants:

Host Institution support letter template

Research Proposal Templates 2024 (official and editable)