Frontier research (European Research Council)

The European Research Council supports frontier bottom - up research, cross disciplinary proposals and pioneering ideas in new and emerging fields which introduce unconventional and innovative approaches. The ERC's mission is to encourage the highest quality research in Europe through competitive funding and to support investigator-driven frontier research across all fields of research, on the basis of scientific excellence. Its sole evaluation criterion is the scientific excellence of the researcher and the research proposal. A total budget of 13.095 million euro is available for the implementation of the ERC funding schemes under Horizon 2020, which are:

 

enlightened Work Programme 

 

Starting Grants

Support up-and-coming research leaders who are about to establish a proper research team and to start conducting independent research in Europe. The scheme targets promising researchers who have the proven potential of becoming independent research leaders.

  • Individual project for researchers of any nationality with 2-7 years of experience since completion of PhD (or equivalent degree) and scientific track record showing great promise;
  • Funding per grant: up to € 1.5 million (in some circumstances up to € 2 million);
  • Duration: up to 5 years

Consolidator Grants

Designed to support researchers at the stage at which they are consolidating their own independent research team or programme. The scheme will strengthen independent and excellent new individual research teams that have been recently created.

  • Individual project for researchers of any nationality with over 7 and up to 12 years of experience since completion of PhD (or equivalent degree) and scientific track record showing great promise;
  • Funding per grant: up to € 2 million (in some circumstances up to € 2.75 million)
  • Duration: up to 5 years

Advanced Grants

They allow exceptional established research leaders of any nationality and any age to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk projects that open new directions in their respective research fields or other domains. It targets researchers who have already established themselves as independent research leaders in their own right and with a recent research track-record and profile which identifies them as leaders in their respective field(s) of research.

  • Individual project for researchers of any nationality with over 12 years of experience since completion of PhD (or equivalent degree) and excellent scientific track record in the last 10 years;
  • Funding per grant: up to € 2.5 million (in some circumstances up to € 3.5 million);
  • Duration: up to 5 years.

Proof of Concept

This funding initiative is only open to researchers who have already been awarded an ERC grant. ERC grant holders can apply for this additional funding to establish the innovation potential of ideas arising from their ERC-funded frontier research projects. 

  • All Principal Investigators benefitting from an ERC Advanced, Synergy, Consolidator or Starting Grant that is either ongoing, or where the project has ended less than 12 months before the publication date of an ERC Proof of Concept call. The Principal Investigator must be able to demonstrate the link between the idea and the related ERC-funded project;
  • Funding per grant: up to € 150.000;
  • Duration: up to 18 months.