Razpis: Horizon 2020 - Excellent Science - European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants

ERC funding scheme open to excellent early career researchers of any nationality who wish to carry out their frontier research, in any field or subject, in the EU Member States or associated countries.

datum: 22.09.2017

kategorija: novice

Financer: Evropska komisija

Upravičenost kandidatov: za podrobnosti glej spodnje poglavje "Eligibility Criteria"

Vrednost projekta: do 1.500.000,00 EUR

Rok za prijavo: 17. 10. 2017

Prijava: preko Participant Portal

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The European Research Council (ERC) provides attractive, long-term funding to support excellent investigators and their research teams to pursue ground-breaking, high gain and high risk research. The ERC is a key component of Horizon 2020 and complements other European research and innovation platforms, such as those of the national research funding agencies.

The ERC operates five main grant programmes to support projects, and investigators, at progressive stages of development: this Starting Grant programme, plus the Proof of Concept Grant, Consolidator Grant, Advanced Grant and Synergy Grant programmes.

Research funded by the ERC is expected to lead to advances at the frontiers of knowledge and to set a clear and inspirational target for frontier research across Europe. It operates using an "investigator-driven" approach to solicit new opportunities and directions in any field of research, as identified by researchers themselves, rather than support priorities set by parties outside of the research community. This attitude to research funding ensures that support is aimed primarily at new and promising opportunities, with a greater degree of flexibility.

Running in parallel with its research funding support objectives, the ERC also aims to fortify and shape the European research system, guided by high quality peer review, the establishment of international benchmarks of success, and the provision of up-to-date information on who is succeeding and why.

Overall, the ERC aims to:

• Support the best of the best in Europe across all fields of science, scholarships and engineering.
• Promote wholly investigator-driven or "bottom-up" frontier research.
• Encourage the work of the established and next generation of independent top research leaders in Europe.
• Reward innovative proposals by placing emphasis on the wuality of the idea rather than the research area.
• Raise the status and visibility of European frontier research and the very best of researchers of today and tommorrow.

Eligibility Criteria

A successful Starting Grant Principal Investigator will have already shown the potential for research independence, for example by having produced at least one important publication without the participation of their PhD supervisor.

Applicant Principal Investigators should also be able to demonstrate a promising track record of early achievements appropriate to their research field and career stage, including significant publications (as main author) in major international peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journals, or in the leading international peer-reviewed journals of their respective field. They may also demonstrate a record of invited presentations in well-established international conferences, granted patents, awards, prizes etc.

Principal Investigators of any nationaly may apply to carry out research in a host institution established in an EU Member State of Associated Country. Public or private institutions, including universities, research organisations and undertakings can host the Principal Investigator.

The researcher may be residing in any country in the world at the time of application, but the host institution must be in an EU Member state or Associated Country. The Grant is awarded to the institution that engages and hosts the Principal Investigator.

In certain conditions team members may be based outside of the EU or an Associated Country.

The following specific eligibility criteria apply:

• Starting Grant - The Principal Investigator should have been awarded his/her first PhD more that two years, and less than seven years prior to the Call for Proposals. Applicants are expected to have produced at least one important publication without the participation of their PhD supervisor. Researchers with more experience are advised to consider applying to one of the following funding streams:
• Consolidator Grant - The Principal Investigator should have been awarded his/her first PhD more than seven, and less than twelve years prior to the Call for Proposals. Applicants are expected to have produced several important publications without the participation of their PhD supervisor.
• Advanced Grant - applicants are expected to be active researchers and to have a track record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years.

Additionally, ERC administers Proof of Concept Grants, which are open to all Principal Investigators in an ERC frontier research project, that is either ongoing or has ended less than 12 months before the publication date of a Call for Proposals. These grants are intended to fund further work (ie activities which were not scheduled to be funded by original ERC frontier research grant) to verify the innovation potential of ideas arising from ERC funded projects.

Additional Information

The 2017 Starting Grant call saw the submission of 3,081 applications, of which 415 will be awarded grants worth up to EUR 1.5 million each. The application number rose about 5 % compared to the 2016 Starting Grant call. Outcomes from this round are to be communicated from 31 May to 6 September 2017.

In addition to their current four grant programmes, ERC have announced that ERC Synergy Grantsm which were discontinued in 2013, will be re-launched in 2018. ERC Synergy Grants facilitate the bringing together of all complementary skills, knowledge and resources in new and unconventional ways, allowing researchers to address research problems whose solutions lie at the confluence of established disciplines.

Value Notes

The 2018 budget for Starting Grants is EUR 581 million. Individual grant levels vary as follows:

• Up to a maximum of EUR 1.5 million for a period of five years.
• Additionaly, up to EUR 500,000 can be requested to cover: eligible "start-up" costs for Principal Investigators moving to the EU or an Associated Country from elsewhere as a consequence of receiving the ERC grant, purchase of mayor equipment, access to large facilities. 

Terms and Conditions

Applicants may be made in any field of research. Support is available for frontier research.

Proposals that cross disciplinary boundaries, pioneering ideas that address new and emerging fields and applications that introduce unconventional, innovative approaches are particulary encouraged.

Applicant Principal Investigators must demonstrate the ground breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their scientfic proposal.

Proposals are examined against relevant criteria by at least three peer reviewers, qualified in the scientific and/or technological fields related to the proposals, who complete and approve individual assessment reports. Based on the outcome of the peer review evaluation the ERC Executive Agency (ERCEA) draws up the final list(s) of proposals for possible funding, resulting in:

• A list of proposals which are of sufficiently high quality to be retained for possible funding (the retained list). If the call establishes indicative budgets for particular panels, domains, fields of research, etc., separate retained lists may be prepared for each such field.
• If the total recommended funding for retained proposals following peer review evaluation exceeds the indicative budget for the call, one or (in the case of indicative budgets associated with separate panels, domains, research fields, etc more reserve list(s) of proposals may be established. The number of proposals kept in reserve is determined by the ERCEA in view of budgetary considerations, and is based on the likelihood that such proposals may eventually receive funding due to eventualities such as withdrawals of proposals, or availability of additional budget.
• A list of proposals which are not retained for funding. This list includes those proposals found to be inlegible; proposals considered not to achieve the required threshold of quality; proposals which, because they fall below a certain ranking, cannot be funded because the available budget is insufficient, and proposals remaining from the reserve list, when the budget available for a particular call has been used up.

Application Procedure

Proposals are submitted by the Principal Investigator who has scientific responsibility for the project, on behalf of the host institution. A single submission of the full proposal will be followed by a two-step evaluation. The evaluation will be conducted by high level peer review panels. Applicant Principal Investigators can request dring the electronic proposal submission that up to three specific persons should not act as a peer reviewer in the evaluation of their proposal.