Call for Applications: ERC Consolidator Grant Program

Principal Investigators must demonstrate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their research proposal. A Consolidator Grant Principal Investigator should have already shown evidence of research independence.

Objectives

• The fundamental activity of the ERC, via its main frontier research grants, is to provide attractive, long-term funding to support excellent investigators (Principal Investigators) and their research teams to pursue ground-breaking and ambitious research.
• Research funded by the ERC is expected to lead to advances at the frontiers of knowledge and to set a clear and inspirational target for frontier research across Europe.
• The ERC also awards complementary funding for the Principal Investigators funded by its main grants, in order to fulfil its mission of supporting new ways of working in the scientific world, and to raise the profile of frontier research in Europe, as well as the visibility of ERC programmes to researchers across Europe and internationally.

Funding Information

• Grant amount: up to EUR 2,000,000.
• Duration: for a period of 5 years.
• Additional funding: up to EUR 1,000,00.

Research Project

• Ground-breaking nature and potential impact of the research project:
  • To what extent does the proposed research address important scientific challenges?
  • To what extent are the objectives ambitious and beyond the state of the art (e.g., novel concepts and approaches or development between or across disciplines)?
• Intellectual capacity and creativity:
  • To what extent has/have the PI(s) demonstrated the ability to conduct ground-breaking research?
  • To what extent does/do the PI(s) provide evidence of creative and original thinking?
  • To what extent does/do the PI(s) have the required scientific expertise and capacity to successfully execute the project?

Fields of Research

• The ERC puts particular emphasis on the frontiers of science, scholarship, and engineering. It welcomes proposals of an interdisciplinary nature, which cross the boundaries between different fields of research, pioneering proposals addressing new and emerging fields of research, or proposals introducing unconventional, innovative approaches and scientific inventions.
• ERC funding may also enable new ways of working in the scientific world, with the potential to create breakthrough results and facilitate commercial and social innovation potential of funded research.

Eligibility Criteria

• The ERC actions are open to researchers of any nationality, who intend to conduct their research activity in any EU Member State or Associated Country. Principal Investigators may be of any age and nationality, and may reside in any country in the world at the time of the application.
• Consolidator Grant proposals are submitted by the Principal Investigator(s) taking scientific responsibility for the project, on behalf of the host institution.
• It is also expected that the host institution will be the only participating legal entity in the case of Consolidator grant.

Evaluation Criteria

• For Consolidator grants, excellence is the sole criterion of evaluation.
• The panels will primarily evaluate:
  • the ground-breaking nature, ambition, and feasibility of the research project.
• At the same time, the panels will evaluate:
  • the intellectual capacity, creativity, and commitment of the Principal Investigator(s), with a focus on the
  • extent to which the Principal Investigator(s) has the required scientific expertise and capacity to successfully execute the project.
• The evaluation of applications to the ERC’s main grants is conducted by peer review panels composed of renowned scientists and scholars selected by the ERC Scientific Council. The panels may be assisted by independent external experts working remotely.
• The ERC’s peer review evaluation process has been carefully designed to identify scientific excellence irrespective of the gender, age, nationality, or institution of the Principal Investigator and other potential biases, and to take career breaks, diverse research career paths, as well as the applicant’s contributions to the research community into account. The evaluations are monitored to guarantee transparency, fairness, and impartiality in the treatment of proposals. ERC calls are expected to be highly competitive.

For more information, visit European Commission.