ERC 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.

The Principal Investigators should be exceptional leaders in terms of originality and significance of their research contributions. No specific eligibility criteria with respect to the academic requirements are foreseen.

Eligibility criteria

-Applications can be made in any field of research. The ERC's grants operate on a 'bottom-up' basis without predetermined priorities.

-Research must be conducted in a public or private research organisation (known as a Host Institution/HI). It could be the HI where the applicant already works, or any other HI located in one of the EU Member States or Associated Countries

-The UK is expected to become an associated country to the EU’s R&I Framework Programme Horizon Europe. The UK will therefore have the same rights and obligations as other countries associated to the Programme.

Advanced Grants may be awarded up to € 2.5 million for a period of 5 years. (pro rata for projects of shorter duration). However, an additional € 1 million can be made available to cover eligible “start-up” costs for researchers moving from a third country to the EU or an associated country and/or the purchase of major equipment and/or access to large facilities and/or other major experimental and field work costs.

An ERC grant can cover up to 100% of the total eligible direct costs of the research plus a contribution of 25% of the total eligible costs towards indirect costs.

ERC grant applications can only be submitted in response to a Call for Proposals.

The ERC has yearly calls for proposals covering all scientific fields.

For an ERC grant application to be complete, it needs to include the administrative forms, the research proposal and the supplementary documents. The completed proposal needs to be submitted by the specified closing date.

Calls are published on this page, the European Commission’s Funding and Tenders Portal and in the Official Journal of the European Union.