European Research Council Synergy Grant

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

Objectives

• The aim is to provide support for a small group of two to four Principal Investigators to jointly address ambitious research problems that could not be addressed by the individual Principal Investigators and their teams working alone. Synergy projects should enable substantial advances at the frontiers of knowledge, stemming, for example, from the cross-fertilization of scientific fields, from new productive lines of enquiry, or new methods and techniques, including unconventional approaches and investigations at the interface between established disciplines. The transformative research funded by Synergy Grants should have the potential of becoming a benchmark on a global scale.
• Principal Investigators must demonstrate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their scientific proposal. Principal Investigators must also demonstrate that their group can successfully bring together the scientific elements necessary to address the scope and complexity of the proposed research question.
• One of the Principal Investigators must be designated as the Corresponding Principal Investigator. At any one time, one Principal Investigator per Synergy Grant Group except the Corresponding one can be hosted or engaged by an institution outside of the EU or Associated Countries.

Funding Information

• Synergy Grants may be awarded up to a maximum of EUR 10 000 000 for a period of 6 years. The maximum award is reduced pro rata temporis for projects of a shorter duration. This does not apply to ongoing projects.
• An additional up to EUR 4 000 000 in total can be requested in the proposal to cover (a) eligible ‘start-up’ costs for Principal Investigators moving to the EU or an Associated Country from elsewhere as a consequence of receiving the ERC grant and/or (b) the purchase of major equipment and/or (c) access to large facilities and/or (d) other major experimental and field work costs, excluding personnel costs. As any additional funding is to cover major one-off costs it is not subject to pro rata temporis reduction for projects of shorter duration. All funding requested is assessed during evaluation.

Eligibility Criteria

• Principal Investigators may be of any age and nationality and may reside in any country in the world at the time of the application. A Synergy Grant Group must be composed of a minimum of two and a maximum of four innovative and active Principal Investigators and, as necessary, their teams. No specific eligibility criteria regarding the academic training are required for PIs applying for ERC Synergy Grants. Each PI has to present their profile, consisting of a CV and track record, using a single template available for all career stages. The PIs are requested to use the template in part B1 available for download from the submission system.
• Principal Investigators funded through an ERC Synergy grant shall spend a minimum of 30% of their working time on the ERC project and a minimum of 50% of their working time in the European Union or Associated Country, except for a Principal Investigator hosted or engaged by an Institution outside the European Union or Associated Country.
• The ERC expects the composition of a Synergy Grant Group to remain unchanged throughout the lifetime of the grant. If a Principal Investigator leaves a Synergy Grant Group, the grant may be continued only exceptionally, contingent on scientific evaluation and provided that all eligibility criteria will continue to be met.

Eligible host institution

• The host institution(s) (Applicant Legal Entity/ies) – up to four host institutions – must engage and host the Principal Investigators for at least the duration of the project, as defined in the grant agreement. It must either be established in the European Union or Associated Country  as a legal entity created under national law, or it may be an international European research organisation (such as CERN, EMBL, etc.), or any other entity created under EU law. Any type of legal entity, public or private, including universities, research organisations and undertakings can host Principal Investigators and their teams. One of these host institutions, with the exception the corresponding host institution, at any one time, may be a legal entity established outside the European Union or Associated Countries or an international organisation.
• Where they bring scientific added value to the project, additional team members may also be hosted by additional legal entities which will be eligible for funding, and which may be legal entities established anywhere, including outside the European Union or Associated Countries, or international organisations. Legal entities established outside the European Union or Associated Countries are eligible for funding when they are one of the host institutions in a Synergy Grant at any one time, or they host additional team members bringing scientific added value to the project, or their participation is deemed essential for carrying out the action, provided that they are not excluded from participation or covered by restrictive measures set out in Annex 3 to the ERC Work Programme 2025.

For more information, visit European Commission.