Preparing an ERC proposal

European Research Council (ERC) grants support innovative and pioneering projects carried out by individual researchers.

Support is provided to excellent and outstanding researchers of any nationality at different stages of their career.

Structure and required documents

The proposal is composed of:

• The  administrative part (to be completed online);
• The scientific proposal, to be uploaded online as a PDF document. The proposal is structured as follows:
  • Part B1: an "extended synopsis" (max. 5 pages), the CV (2 pages) and the "Early achievements track-record" (max. 2 pages).
  • Part B2: the extended scientific proposal (max. 14 pages)

ERC grants proposals must also include a binding support statement from the University, done through a “Host Institution Support Letter”. This document is a mandatory part of the proposal: in its absence, the project will be rejected. The Host Support Letter is to be prepared by the Grants Office. Please contact us well in advance to allow enough time for preparation and signature.

Evaluation

Evaluation consists of two steps:

• Step 1: only the Part B1 is evaluated (extended synopsis together with the PI's track record and CV).
• Step 2: proposals that pass the first step are then evaluated based on the full proposal (Part B1, Part B2 plus Section 3 –“Budget and time commitment”). Step 2 includes an interview of  approximately 30 minutes of each applicant in front of the evaluation panel. NEW: as of the 2021 call, this applies to the Advanced Grants proposals as well.

Further information

• Detailed information and official documents are available upon call opening on the Participant Portal call page.
• ERC official website: https://erc.europa.eu/