European Research Council (ERC) 2024 Work Program Published!

The European Research Council (ERC) is a program established and run by the European Union (EU). It aims to support scientific excellence and promote cutting-edge scientific research in Europe. ERC provides competitive and prestigious grants to support fundamental research. The program encourages interdisciplinary and independent work, and high-risk research.

The ERC program has four different grant categories:

1. Starting Grant (StG): The Starting Grant call aims to support early-career researchers in establishing independent research programs and teams. Applicants are expected to demonstrate the ground-breaking research, objectives, and feasibility of their project ideas in their proposal. The Starting Grant call suits researchers who have defended their doctoral thesis 2-7 years before the call reference date (the first day of the year indicated in the call document). The ERC-2024-StG call has been opened on July 11, 2023, and is expected to close on October 24, 2023.

2. Consolidator Grant (CoG): Researchers applying for Consolidator Grant funding are expected to have reached a certain level of scientific excellence and demonstrate their ability to conduct independent research. This evidence could be publishing a significant number of papers without the guidance of their doctoral supervisor or being the primary author in essential publications. The Consolidator Grant call is suitable for researchers who obtained their doctoral degree 7-12 years before the call reference date (the first day of the year indicated in the call document). The ERC-2024-CoG call will be published on October 26, 2023, and the application deadline (earlier than usual) is December 12, 2023.

3. Advanced Grant (AdG): The Advanced Grant call is suitable for globally recognized scientists who have made significant research achievements in the last 10 years, have their research team and hold a leading position in the scientific community. The principal investigators are expected to demonstrate their project ideas' disruptive nature, objectives, and feasibility in their proposals. The ERC-2024-AdG call will be published on May 29, 2024, and the application deadline is August 29, 2024.

4. Synergy Grant (SyG): The Synergy Grant aims to bring together at least two and up to four researchers, leveraging their complementary skills and resources to find solutions to ambitious scientific problems. Its main goal is to expand the boundaries of knowledge and promote the use of new methods and techniques across different disciplines. The research conducted under this grant is intended to be a milestone in science worldwide. While no specific selection criteria are required for applicants, this grant is highly competitive, and only exceptional proposals are accepted. The ERC-2024-SyG call has been opened on July 12, 2023, and is expected to close on November 8, 2023.

In addition, the Proof of Concept (PoC) funding is provided by ERC to support additional activities that contribute to the commercial or socio-economic potential and commercialization of previously supported projects. The ERC-2024-PoC call will be opened on November 16, 2023, with two different cut-off dates: March 14, 2024, and September 17, 2024.

ERC is open to researchers working in all scientific fields across Europe. Researchers can develop their research projects and become eligible for funding through a competitive application process. ERC grants provide opportunities such as employing team members, establishing laboratories, purchasing equipment, and financing research processes.

The ERC 2024 Work Program includes significant changes regarding research projects and researcher evaluations. The fundamental changes are as follows:

• Scientific excellence remains a priority evaluation criterion. However, more emphasis will be placed on the quality of the project proposal and the researcher's curriculum vitae and past achievements.

• The curriculum vitae and past achievements sections in the application forms will be simplified, merged, and updated to include text descriptions. These sections will be limited to a maximum of four pages.

• Advanced Grants will be implemented as a pilot call using a lump sum contribution, while StG, CoG, and SyG calls will continue to use the actual cost model. 

• Each panel will evaluate a maximum of 44 project proposals in the second evaluation stage for the StG, CoG, and AdG calls. Additionally, a new rule has been introduced, stating that projects receiving an “A” score in the first evaluation stage will be invited to the second stage evaluation and interview, but the remaining number of A-scored projects will not proceed to the second stage. However, they can reapply without waiting for the next call.

• A new evaluation panel (SH8-Studies of Cultures and Arts) has been created in the Social Sciences and Humanities domain. This new panel combines cultural studies, art history, architecture, music and musicology, visual and performing arts, museum studies, cultural heritage and other related fields from SH5 with social anthropology from SH3. The title of the SH5 is changed to "SH5-Texts and Concepts". The title of LS3 is changed to "LS3 – Cell Biology, Development, Stem Cells and Regeneration" to make it explicit that both stem cell and regeneration biology fields are addressed. Lastly in "LS5-Neuroscience and Disorders of the Nervous System" panel a new sub-title (“In humans and all other organisms”) has been added to make it explicit that the panel covers research in humans, as well as in other organisms. These changes in the panel structure aim to balance panels in terms of the number of proposals assessed in each call, the disciplinary coherence within and across panels, and the place of interdisciplinary research.

• The new work program indicates the removal of the phrase "high risk/high gain" and using expressions such as “ambitious” and “groundbreaking” instead.

You can review the call schedule and relevant budget links for more information.