Among the results of the 2026 European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant call (call deadline 14 October 2025) are 16 researchers with a Flemish main host institution.

Starting Grants

Starting Grants are open to researchers with 2–7 years of experience since completion of their PhD (extensions are possible under certain documented circumstances), a scientific track record showing great promise and an excellent research proposal. Note the rules have changed as of the 2027 ERC work programme. More information is available in this news article.  

Proposal evaluation

Proposals are evaluated in 28 evaluation panels in three research domains (Physical Sciences and Engineering (PE), Social Sciences and Humanities (SH) and Life Sciences (LS)), composed of top scientists and scholars coming from all over the world and additionally by remote referees with the necessary specialised expertise (two to five per proposal).

Starting Grant 2026 call submissions and awards

Of the 4807 submitted proposals 421 researchers with 52 different nationalities received an ERC Starting Grant: 113 In Life Sciences, 169 in Physical Sciences and Engineering and 139 in Social Sciences and Humanities. The overall success rate was 8.8%. In the ERCEA news articles, more background on the evaluation results, call statistics and several project examples are highlighted.

Among the 421 selected researchers, 16 are based at Flemish main host institutions. For Belgium, 21 grants were awarded in total. The projects of some of the 16 Principal Investigators (PIs) are presented in news articles of KU Leuven, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Universiteit Hasselt. The following researchers have been awarded a Starting Grant (first and last name, main host institution, acronym and title of the project and evaluation panel).

Aurélie BELLEMANS, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, ESCAPADE - Energising the future with clean plasma-based technologies, PE8

Katrien BENHALIMA, KU Leuven, PRISCILA - Precision risk stratification in pregnancy and postpartum in women with gestational diabetes, LS7

Tim BEYNE, KU Leuven, RECRYPT - Reshaping the Security Analysis of Symmetric Cryptography, PE6

Christina BEZARI, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, MEDWON - Mediterranean Shores and Women’s Networks: Translation, Print Culture and Decolonial Thought in Southern Europe and the Maghreb (1912–1995), SH5

Andreas BLOMMAERT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, HOLOVERSE - Gravity without boundaries - a cosmological hologram, PE2

Nel DE MÛELENAERE, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, EVERYDAY REBELLIONS - Creativity and Domestic Care as Civilian Resistance in Occupied Europe, 1939-1945, SH6

Jan EIJKING, Universiteit Antwerpen, REGCOM - Regulatory Communities and the Making of Global Order, SH2

Nicolas ENGLEBERT, Universiteit Gent, VISIR - On-chip quadratic soliton modelocking in the ultraviolet, visible, and mid-infrared, PE7

Hilde GUNNINK, Universiteit Gent, LoLaSa - The lost languages of Southern Africa: Linguistic traces of Southern Africa’s early inhabitants, SH4

Mina IBRAHIM, Universiteit Gent, GPS-Archives - The Glocal Public Syrian Archives: Reclaiming Popular Media for Memory and Justice Before and After the Fall of Assad, SH8

Akash KOPPA, Universiteit Gent, LAMDA - Land–atmosphere interactions as a mechanism of dryland formation, PE10

Pablo MARIN-PALOMO, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, COMBYNE - Dynamics of Coupled Lasers: AllOptical Scalable Path for Programmable On-Chip Frequency Comb Sources, PE7

Nick RAHIER, Universiteit Gent, HEATWAYS - Beyond Temperature: Thermal Futuring and the Anthropology of Viability in the East African Rift Valley, SH8

Wouter SAELENS, Universiteit Gent, PowerPortrait - Building a full causal Portrait of cell differentiation, LS2

Wouter VAN GOMPEL, Universiteit Hasselt, CONCePT - Electroactive organic cations for chiral hybrid perovskites: combining efficient charge carrier transport with strong chiroptical activity,  PE11

Matthew WILSON, KU Leuven, DOLIGOAL - The Role of Dolichol in Linking Glycosylation, Lipid Homeostasis and Human Disease, LS1