The results of the 2024 European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept (PoC) Grant call (2nd deadline date 17 September 2024) were published. Principal Investigators (PIs) with a main ERC Grant that is ongoing or ended after 1 January 2023 are eligible to participate in an ERC 2024 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 call in total 134 ERC PoC Grants were awarded to PIs working in 20 different countries across Europe. In the ERCEA news articles more background on the evaluation results and several project examples are highlighted. Among the 134 selected researchers are at least nine based at Flemish host institutions. The projects of several PIs are presented in the news articles of Universiteit Gent and VIB.

• Peter Carmeliet, VIB, “NANOBITER - Nanobodies blocking immunosuppressive unexplored proteins from the tumor endothelium to promote anti-tumor immune response” which builds on research funded by the 2021 Advanced Grant MystIMEC, and is the fifth ERC grant awarded to him.
• Tine Destrooper, Universiteit Gent, “RedressHub - Colonial Legacies and Redress: A Digital Mapping Solution for Europe” which builds on research funded by the 2018 Starting Grant VictPart, and is the third ERC grant awarded to her.
• Christian Haffner, imec, “LEO - Low-loss fiber coupler” which builds on research funded by the 2021 Starting Grant Q-AMP.
• Paul Heremans, imec, “PEROTUNE - On-chip tunable perovskite laser in the visible/near-infrared range” which builds on research funded by the 2018 Advanced Grant ULTRA-LUX, and is the third ERC grant awarded to him.
• Sarah Lebeer, Universiteit Antwerpen, “VALERIE - Valorization of Lactobacilli and their Antimicrobial Peptides for Reproductive and Intimate Health Enhancement” which builds on research funded by the 2019 Starting Grant Lacto-Be and under the duration of this project the Isala citizen science project was launched.
• Massimiliano Mazzone, VIB, “PA-PYR-us - Overcoming PAncreatic cancer immunotherapy resistance: developing PYRimidine receptor antagonists” which builds on research funded by the 2017 Consolidator Grant ImmunoFit, and is the sixth ERC grant awarded to him.
• Johanna Tummers, Universiteit Gent, “CODES - COunterfeit DEtection: Validating the ARTDETECT approach with Stakeholders in the loop” which builds on research funded by the 2022 Consolidator Grant ARTDETECT.
• Kevin Van Geem, Universiteit Gent, “AVATAR - Advanced Vortex Technology for Electrified Solvent Regeneration” which builds on research funded by the 2018 Consolidator Grant OPTIMA, and is the third ERC grant awarded to him.
• Niels Verellen, imec, “INPHOSIS - Integrated photonics-based structured illumination for sequencing” which builds on research funded by the 2018 Starting Grant IROCSIM.