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NEWS7 Jun 2024opportunities

Long-term funding for frontier research in Europe - ERC Advanced Grants 2024

ERC AdV Grants OPEN

The 2024 call opened on 29 May with a deadline on 29 August 2024.

The European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants are long-term funding to pursue a ground-breaking, high-risk project in Europe. They support excellent Principal Investigators of any nationality who intend to conduct their research activity in any Member State or Country Associated to Horizon Europe.

The ERC's frontier research grants operate on a 'bottom-up' basis without predetermined priorities.

Eligibility

Researchers of any nationality, any age. Applicants - called Principal Investigators (PIs) - are expected to be active researchers who have a track-record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years. The Principal Investigators should be exceptional leaders in terms of originality and significance of their research contributions.

Location 

Research must be conducted in a public or private research organisation (known as a Host Institution/HI). It could be the HI where the applicant already works, or any other HI located in one of the EU  Member States or Countries Associated to Horizon Europe, including UK.

Funding

Up to € 2.5 million per grant. Advanced Grants will be implemented as a pilot call using a lump sum contribution.

Researchers from LAC : note that an additional € 1 million can be made available to cover eligible “start-up” costs for researchers moving from Latin America and the Caribbean (or any other third country) to the EU or an associated country and/or the purchase of major equipment and/or access to large facilities.

Duration

Up to 5 years.

Sole evaluation criterion: scientific excellence of researcher and research proposal.

Deadline: 29 August 2024.

For more details on the Advanced Grants, access the dedicated page on the ERC website.

Find the call here (ERC-2024-ADG)

Important notice: Time to spend on the project

Researchers applying for ERC-funding must be strongly committed to the project and spend a significant amount of time on it. However, it is not obligatory to spend 100% of your time in Europe whilst carrying out the ERC-funded research. For Advanced Grants, the Principal Investigator should devote at least 30% of her/his working time to the ERC project and spend at least 50% of her/his total working time in an EU Member State or Associated Country.

About the ERC

Set up in 2007 by the EU, the European Research Council is the first pan-European funding organization for frontier research. It aims to stimulate scientific excellence in Europe by encouraging competition for funding between the very best, creative researchers of any nationality and age. The ERC also strives to attract top researchers from anywhere in the world to come to Europe. It funds young, early-career top researchers ('ERC Starting grants'), already independent excellent scientists ('ERC Consolidator Grants'), and senior research leaders ('ERC Advanced Grants'). 

With its Synergy Grants, the ERC also supports groups of two to maximum four Principal Investigators (PIs) working together and bringing different skills and resources to tackle ambitious research problems.

Testimonies

You can read our interviews with:

Jobs in ERC teams

Please, note that ERC grants support projects carried out by an individual researcher ('Principal Investigator') who can employ researchers of any nationality as team members. It is also possible to have one or more team members located in a non-European country.

Vacancies for team members interested in joining an ERC-led research project can be published on the Euraxess-Jobs portal.

Read our interviews with:

Short-term postdoctoral visits (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico)

Brazil : In the framework of the European Commission (EC) - Confap implementing Arrangement (2016) and the Administrative Arrangement between the DG RTD of the EC - CNPq-FINEP-CONAP (2018), Brazilian active researchers in a wide range of scientific fields have the possibility to carry out research visits and temporarily join ERC teams in Europe to conduct frontier research activities.  Next call should open  in 2024. More here and on the Confap website.

Additional resources:

About the previous call

The ERC Advanced Grants 2023 call received 1,829 proposals (+11% compared to the 2022 call). 255 projects were selected, representing a 13,9% success rate. Advanced grantees are from 32 different nationalities, among which Mexican, and will conduct their research in 20 countries. See Examples of projects.