ERC Grants Info Session: Funding for Excellent Frontier Research

Join EURAXESS North America and the European Research Council Executive Agency for a webinar on the bottom-up funding schemes that make up the European Research Council grants. The ERC is the premier European funding organization for excellent frontier research supporting investigator-driven frontier research across all fields. It awards research grants to scientists and scholars from all over the world, both early-career and senior researchers, carrying out their ambitious research projects in all scientific disciplines in Europe.

This free webinar is directed at postdoctoral researchers and established researchers (PhD plus two years' experience) of all disciplines and all nationalities, as well as university staff promoting funding opportunities for their researchers. It will take place in English on Zoom on Wednesday, May 20th, 2026 at 11:30 AM ET (8:30 AM Pacific / 5:30 PM CEST (convert to your local time zone here) and last approximately one hour. The webinar is free but advanced registration is required.

Register now

Hear directly from the European Research Council Executive Agency, with an ERC Research Program Agent, and from a current ERC grantee. Attendees will receive an overview of the ERC grants and tips for preparing your proposal, as well as address your queries during a Q&A session. Familiarize yourself with the basics and check out the ERC Classes video playlist beforehand as well as a prior webinar on ERC grants.

Still not sure if you should consider these grants? Hear why directly from the ERC President, Prof. Maria Leptin, with whom we spoke during her past visit to Washington, DC:

Additional resources

• ERC grants 2026 call dates

• List of ERC grants and current open calls

Speaker biography

Ágnes Kulcsár, ERC Research Program Agent

Ágnes Kulcsár has been coordinating the multi-investigator ERC Synergy Grants call since its inception in 2012. She has experience in the coordination of various individual grant evaluations as well as in the duties of a scientific officer. Her responsibilities include the preparation of the submission system for applicants and ensuring the proper implementation of the evaluation process. Drafting guidance documents — such as the Information for Applicants and the Guide for Peer Reviewers — is also part of her work. She also serves as a key point of contact for applicants and peer reviewers, addressing their queries throughout the application and evaluation process.

Following the award of her PhD in biophysics from the University of Szeged, conducted in collaboration with the Biological Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and focused on bacterial retinal proteins, she pursued postdoctoral fellowships in biomaterials at INSERM , Strasbourg, France, followed by a fellowship in cellular biophysics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. She has worked at the ERC Executive Agency since 2009, having transitioned from research to administration in 2007, when she joined the European Commission as a project officer in the field of biomaterials.