European Research Council (ERC)

About this programme

The European Research Council (ERC) awards grants, through a challenging European competition, for excellent scientific research across all fields, initiated/driven by investigators. It thus supports  ‘bottom-up’ research without predetermined priorities of a ground-breaking nature.

There are three types of grants which each support another phase in a researcher’s career, going from the PhD defense date to an established research leader (Starting, Consolidator and Advanced grants). The Synergy grants address ambitious research problems with a group of two to four Principal Investigators (PIs) and their teams. The Proof of Concept grant is short-term complementary funding for recipients of the previous four main types of grants. The ERC Plus grant is planned to support outstanding researchers from Europe and anywhere in the world with bold ideas and a vision for transformative research that goes beyond the scope of existing ERC programmes. 

The 2026 work programme includes a call for each main frontier research grant, i.e. StartingConsolidatorAdvanced and Synergy Grant, plus a call for complementary funding for ERC Principal Investigators, i.e. the Proof of Concept Grant with two submission deadlines and a prize contest for ERC Principal Investigators for the Public Engagement with Research award. The work programme contains also several other actions for call and programme monitoring and evaluation, support to the ERC Scientific Council, including public procurement e.g. for IT services related to ERC call management. With the update of the 2026 work programme the call for ERC Plus Grants was included.

The 2027 work programme includes a call for each main frontier research grant, i.e. StartingConsolidatorAdvanced, ERC Plus and Synergy Grant, plus a call for complementary funding for ERC Principal Investigators, i.e. the Proof of Concept Grant with two submission deadlines. The work programme contains also several other actions for call and programme monitoring and evaluation, support to the ERC Scientific Council, including a grant to an identified beneficiary for the Lithuanian presidency event for the celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the ERC. Novelties for the 2027 work programme are summarised in this ERC news article.

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Your NCP contact for this programme

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Margot Beereboom

margot.beereboom@fwo.be

+32 2 550 15 76

Your PC contact for this programme

Find the contact info on the site of WEWIS

The National Contact Points (NCPs) provide support, guidance, and practical information to potential applicants, helping them navigate funding opportunities and application processes.

The Programme Committee (PC) members represent their country in decision-making about the work programmes, evaluate implementation, and provide strategic input on priorities and calls.

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Work Programme & Calls

We offer a handy Excel file, weekly updated, containing an up-to-date overview of the Horizon Europe calls. call topics overview

Infosheets

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Testimonial

PBNv2 - a MSCA ITN in the field of automotive R&D

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) European Innovative Training Network “PBNv2 - Next generation Pass-By Noise approaches for new powertrain vehicles” started in May 2017. Their research has the shared objective of investigating the possibilities to decrease pass-by noise of vehicles.

The project is a collaboration between 17 research institutions and companies in the European automotive R&D and provides a learning environment for 14 PhD fellows. The Belgian partner is the Noise and Vibration Research Group of KU Leuven, and this project is one of the many Horizon 2020 MSCA Innovative Training Networks that the KU Leuven research group participates in.