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. Starting, Consolidator, Advanced 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. Starting, Consolidator, Advanced, 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.
As of the 2028 ERC calls, under the EU’s future Research and Innovation framework programme (2028-2034), a new thematic evaluation panel on Fundamentals of AI in the domain Physical Sciences and Engineering (PE12) will be established. The new panel will cover fundamental and basic research aimed at advancing the foundations, methods, and...
Read moreThe ERC is looking for ERC grantees to participate in the 2027 edition of the annual ‘Science is Wonderful!’ science fair. The fair is aimed at primary and secondary school students and gives them the opportunity to interact with teams of researchers that showcase their work at booths through live experiments,...
Read moreThe eight winners of the 2026 edition of the ERC Public Engagement with Research Award (ERC-2026-PERA) have been announced. This is the first time, since the PERA Award was established, that two researchers affiliated with Flemish universities have won this award: Valeria Pulignano from KU Leuven and Sarah Lebeer from Universiteit Antwerpen. More...
Read moreAmong 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...
Read moreThe ERC is inviting expressions of interest from current ERC grantees for a one-day science communication training taking place in Brussels. Interested ERC grantees are invited to complete the online expression of interest form. The deadline for applications is 24 August 2026 12 pm CEST. Notification of selected participants (approximately 40) is...
Read moreThe European Research Council (ERC) will celebrate the eight winners of its 2026 Public Engagement with Research Award (PERA) at a special session during the European Research and Innovation Days in Brussels. From music and cardiovascular health to climate-adaptive forests, tickling and neuroscience, women’s rights, the human...
Read moreThis information webinar on the European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grants 2027 call for proposals is organised by the National Contact Points (NCPs) for ERC in Belgium (NCP Federal BE, NCP Flanders and NCP-FNRS) to inform potential applicants and host institutions. It is also aimed at researchers who are considering applying in the...
Read moreScience is Wonderful! is the annual science fair organised by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA). Over 4000 primary and secondary school pupils from all corners of Belgium visit the fair. Since its inception in 2015, this fair interactively showcases EU-funded research projects and innovations through hands-on experiments, science...
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The Stargate project obtained funding under the special Green Deal call of Horizon 2020, more in particular under the topic of “green ports and airports”. It received the maximum score of the evaluators and was selected out of more than 40 projects. Stargate’s purpose is to prove that sustainable aviation is possible and happening. It focuses on the further decarbonization of the aviation industry, the improvement of local environmental quality and the stimulation of the modal split. Together with a consortium of 21 European partners with a diverse and rich expertise (airports, community partners, knowledge institutions, consultants, local governments, …), Brussels Airports takes the lead as lighthouse airport to develop and implement innovative solutions. Results that prove successful can be deployed at the fellow airports (Toulouse, Budapest, Athens). Over the course of the coming five years, the consortium will exchange knowledge to investigate and realize more than 30 concrete projects.
