Programme: Horizon Europe
Priority: Excellent Science
Objective: European Research Council
Budget: 751 M€
Opening Date: 10-07-2024
Deadline: 15-10-2024
Call Documents: Call ERC-2025-StG
Link: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/erc-2025-stg
Objective of the European Research Council is to sustain excellence research, with a bottom-up approach, enhancing dynamism and creativity of European frontier research, by financing ambitious projects led by Principal Investigators with internationally relevant curricula.
All scientific fields are eligible. ERC encourages interdisciplinary proposals that cross the boundaries between different fields of research, pioneering proposals addressing emerging areas of research or introducing innovative and unconventional approaches and scientific inventions.
The Starting Grant action is addressed to young researchers that have successfully defended their first PhD degree more than 2 and up to 7 years prior to 1 January 2025.
The Principal Investigator should be able to demonstrate his/her potential for research independence, proven, for example, by having produced at least one important publication as main author.
Proposals are submitted by the Principal Investigator on behalf of the host institution, normally the sole legal entity participating in the project. Nevertheless it is foreseen that, if they bring scientific added value to the project, the team may involve researchers from other organizations, legal entities that, in turn, can benefit from the EU contribution.
The researcher is required to spend at least 50% of his/her total working time on the financed project and to conduct overall, for the same percentage, his/her activity in an EU Member State or Associated Country.
The budget allocated by the European Commission for this deadline is 751 M€, with a number of granted projects foreseen in 483.
The maximum amount expected per Grant is 1,5 M€ for a period of 5 years [to reduce pro rata in the event of projects of a shorter duration].
For this action the EC contribution corresponds to 100% of the eligible costs directly linked to the project activities on which a 25% share is recognized to cover indirect costs [excluding direct costs incurred for subcontracting].
The host institution must be a legal entity located in an EU Member State or Associated Country.
The grant agreements will be signed by the European Research Council Executive Agency and the host institution, which shall be responsible for the implementation of the project. The supervision of the research activities must be guaranteed to the Principal Investigator.
Normally, the Principal Investigator will be employed by the host institution for at least the duration of the project. Moreover, an integrative agreement between the Principal Investigator and the host institution will be signed for the regulation of rights and duties of the parties.
As of 2024, CV and track record of the PI will form a single document, in which he/she will include qualifications, training and work experiences, highlighting significant career moments through listing research outputs [max. 10] and recognition obtained. The information will be taken into consideration for the PI profile evaluation, in order to demonstrate the advanced knowledge acquired by the PI in his/her field of research and the candidate’s ability to successfully implement the proposed project.
The proposals will be evaluated by international panels of experts based on the sole criterion of scientific excellence, with a focus, greater than previous calls, on the quality of the project, in particular in relation to the innovative aspect, ambition and feasibility of the research proposal, always considering two evaluation steps.
As in the previous WP, there is a threshold of eligible proposals per panel for the transition to step 2: n. 44 projects. In the first evaluation step, the highest score [A] will be divided into A invited and A not invited, to distinguish excellent quality proposals between those within the threshold and those not invited in the second step of evaluation. Proposals evaluated A not invited may be submitted to the call of the following year.
To participate in the ERC calls 2025 [Starting, Consolidator, Advanced and Synergy Grants], some restrictions have been introduced for PIs that applied under ERC WP 2024 and 2023. Below a summarizing scheme.
