Attractive, long-term funding to support excellent investigators and their teams from all disciplines to pursue ground-breaking research.
The European Research Council (ERC) places particular emphasis on the frontiers of science, scholarship and engineering. It encourages proposals of an interdisciplinary nature that cross the boundaries between fields of research, pioneering proposals addressing new and emerging fields, or proposals introducing unconventional, innovative approaches and scientific inventions.
Applications can be made from any field of research.
Excellence
Excellence is the sole criterion on the basis of which ERC frontier research grants are awarded. The ERC aims to:
- Support the best of the best in Europe across all fields of science, scholarship and engineering.
- Promote wholly investigator-driven, or 'bottom-up' frontier research.
- Encourage the work of the established and next generation of independent top research leaders in Europe.
- Reward innovative proposals by placing emphasis on the quality of the idea rather than the research area.
- Raise the status and visibility of European frontier research and the very best researchers of today and tomorrow.
What funding is on offer?
The ERC has yearly calls for proposals covering all scientific fields. Three of them are awarded to a individual principal investigators, depending on the stage of their career:
| Scheme | Eligibility | Funding & Duration |
| Starting Grants | 2–7 years post-PhD | €1.5M for 5 years |
| Consolidator Grants | 7–12 years post-PhD | €2.0M for 5 years |
| Advanced Grants | Track record of significant research achievement in last 10 years | €2.5M for 5 years |
There are also Synergy grants, which are awarded to a group of two to four principal investigators working together, and Proof of Concept grants for existing ERC awardees looking to explore the commercial and social innovation potential of their ERC-funded research.