The results of the 2026 European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept (PoC) Grant call  (first deadline date 17 March 2026) were published. Principal Investigators (PIs) with a main ERC Grant that is ongoing or ended after 1 January 2025 are eligible to participate in an ERC 2026 PoC Grant. The ERC PoC Grants aim at facilitating exploration of the commercial and social innovation potential of ERC funded research and are therefore available only to PIs whose proposals draw substantially on their ERC funded research.

For this first call in total 182 ERC PoC Grants were awarded to PIs working in 21 different countries across Europe, EU member states and associated countries. In the ERCEA news article more background on the evaluation results and the full list of winning projects (deadline 1) are highlighted. Among the 182 selected researchers are nine based at Flemish host institutions. The projects of several PIs are presented in the news articles of the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (web article) and Universiteit Antwerpen (web article). The second and last deadline date of the 2026 call is 17 September 2026.

Stein AERTS, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, CellTuned: AI-driven regulatory genomics for precision therapy, which builds on research funded by the 2021 Advanced Grant Genome2Cells - Decoding animal genomes into cell types and is the fourth ERC Grant awarded to him (1 Consolidator, 1 Advanced and 2 Proof of Concept Grants).

Rob AMELOOT, KU Leuven, FLASH-IT - Flash Sorption Analysis for Ultra-Fast Adsorbent Evaluation, which builds on research funded by the 2021 Consolidator Grant KISSIES - Kinetic selectivity in molecular sieve sensors and is the sixth ERC Grant awarded to him (1 Starting, 1 Consolidator and 4 Proof of Concept Grants). 

Bart DE STROOPER, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, AD-LINK: Reversing Early Aβ-Driven Network Hyperexcitability, which builds on research funded by the 2024 Advanced Grant XenoAD - Modelling the impact of aging in sporadic Alzheimer’s disease and is the fifth ERC Grant awarded to him (3 Advanced and 2 Proof of Concept Grants).

Dominique DEVRIESE, KU Leuven, MicroVerif - Rigorous Micro-Verification of Legacy Embedded Software Systems, which builds on research funded by the 2021 Starting Grant UniversalContracts - Formalizing, Verifying and Applying ISA Security Guarantees as Universal Contracts.

Diether LAMBRECHTS, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, TWISTAR - AN OFF-THE-SHELF VACCINE FOR TRIPLE-NEGATIVE BREAST CANCER, which builds on research funded by the 2021 Advanced Grant EXPAND IT - EXPANDing Immune Cells and their Tumor Antigens during checkpoint immunotherapy and is the fourth ERC Grant awarded to him (1 Consolidator, 1 Advanced and 2 Proof of Concept Grants).

Sarah LEBEER, Universiteit Antwerpen, Lab-Protect: Translating phyllosphere-adapted microbial insights into a new class of lactobacilli-based biocontrol solutions, which builds on research funded by the 2019 Starting Grant Lacto-BE - Advancing Lactobacillus’ beneficial potential and is the third ERC Grant awarded to her (1 Starting and 2 Proof of Concept Grants).

Renzo MANCUSO, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, MicroTreatAD - Engineering microglia to treat Alzheimer’s disease, which builds on research funded by the 2021 Starting Grant XenoMicrogliaAD - Deciphering the microglia-neuron interactions in human Alzheimer's disease.

Jan STEYAERT, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, DUAL-PAM - In vivo validation of a novel, high precision Positive Allosteric Modulation-based therapy for immune inflammatory diseases, which builds on research funded by the 2023 Advanced Grant Allosteris - Allosteric modulation of immune checkpoint complexes as a new mode of therapeutic intervention in immunotherapy and is the third ERC Grant awarded to him (1 Advanced and 2 Proof of Concept Grants).

Xing YANG, KU Leuven, PRISM-ION - From Discovery to Scale – Precision Membranes for Critical Ion Recover, which builds on research funded by the 2022 Starting Grant IonFracMem - Enabling Targeted Fractionation of Ions via Facilitated Transport Membranes.