ERC – Work Programme 2016 for research of excellence

Research

In July the European Commission adopted the ERC Work Programme 2016 with a budget of 1,67 billion of euros

The European Research Council (ERC) aims to provide attractive, long-term funding to support excellent investigators and their research teams, in order to set a clear and inspirational target for frontier research across Europe. The ERC Work Programme 2016 foresees 1,67 billion of euros for grants to top researchers from anywhere in the world who are ready to come or to stay in Europe.

ERC provides different kinds of grants:

  • Starting Grants, for researchers of any nationality with 2-7 years of experience, funding up to 1,5 million of euros (in some circumstances up to 2 million of euros) for 5 years (485 million of euros);
  • Consolidator Grants, for researchers of any nationality with over 7 and up to 12 years of experience, funding up to 2 million of euros (in some circumstances up to 2,75 million of euros) for 5 years (605 million of euros);
  • Advanced Grants, for scientifically independent researchers of any nationality and any age, funding up to 2,5 million of euros (in some circumstances up to 3,5 million of euros) for 5 years (540 million of euros);
  • Proof of concept, for Principal Investigators benefitting from an ERC Advanced, Synergy, Consolidator or Starting Grant , funding up to 150.000 euros for a period up to 18 months (20 million of euros).

The Work Programme introduces also a new action to widen participation in ERC competitions: a support to a consortium of formally nominated ERC National Contact Points (NCPs) to identify and share good practices and raise the quality of support to applicants.

Compared to the previous work programme, the main novelty for ERC applicants is a relative "softening" of the resubmission rules. Applicants who scored B at step 2 of the evaluation in the last call will be able to reapply immediately, while under the 2015 work programme they had to wait for one year. There are also new restrictions for applications from applicants whose proposals have been rejected on grounds of breach of research integrity.

Links
ERC Work Programme 2016

Photo credit: Sanofi Pasteur / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND