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ERC Starting Grants (ERC-StG)
support top researchers with 2 to 12 years of experience after
their PhD. Grants of up to 1,5 Mio
€
(up to 2 Mio
€
under certain circumstances) are awarded for up to five years.
The ERC Starting Grant scheme aims to boost the career and performance of the next generation of research
leaders by supporting their early scientific independence. The ERC “Starting Grants” address the gap in funding
opportunities for researchers in the early stages of their careers. Through this scheme, outstanding researchers
are assisted in establishing or consolidating their own team with a view to a transition from working under a su-
pervisor to becoming independent researchers. Prospective grantees will need to make proposals of exceptional
quality. ERC Grants require the scientific independence of grantees to be guaranteed by host institutions.
From the 2013 ERC Work Programme, the ERC Starting Grants have been divided into two different ERC fund-
ing schemes: the ERC Starting Grants and the ERC Consolidator Grants.
aims to support promising researchers who have the proven potential of becoming independent research lead-
ers, with 2 to 7 years of experience after their PhD, and grants of up to 1,5 Mio
€
(in some situations up to 2
Mio
€
) for up to five years. The
is designed to support researchers who are
consolidating their own independent research team or programme, with 7 to 12 years of experience after their
PhD, and grants of up to 2 Mio
€
(in some circumstances up to 2,75 Mio
€
) for up to five years.
ERC Advanced Grants
are aimed at excellent established investigators. Grants
amount to up to 2,5 Mio
€
(under certain circumstances up to 3,5 Mio
€
) for up to five years. The ERC Advanced
Grants supports researchers of whatever age who have already established themselves as exceptional leaders
in their field. The Advanced Grants are intended to fund highly innovative and ambitious projects and the most
talented experienced investigators that display a recent outstanding track record (last 10 years) and a leadership
profile in terms of originality and impact of research achievements.
ERC Synergy Grants
are aimed at small groups of excellent researchers (2 to 4) to
carry out an ambitious project with high synergy effects. Grants of up to 15 Mio
€
are awarded for up to six years.
In recent years, small research groups of Principal Investigators and their teams, frequently organised around
interdisciplinary problems and shared facilities, have emerged as an increasingly productive unit of research. In
2011, the ERC Synergy scheme was introduced on a pilot basis to enable small groups of two to four Principal
Investigators (with a designated Lead Principal Investigator) and their teams to bring together complementary
skills, knowledge, and resources, in order to jointly address research problems at the frontier of knowledge go-
ing beyond what the individual PIs could achieve alone. The Synergy Grant scheme also adopts an investigator-
driven approach with the research priorities and the configuration of the group determined by the PIs alone. It is
open to exceptional independent researchers regardless of their career stage, age, gender and nationality, and
proposals are evaluated on the sole criterion of excellence. As indicated in the
ERC Annual Report of 2011
, the
Scientific Council will assess the Synergy Grant pilot over two calls (ERC-2012-SyG and ERC-2013-SyG) before
deciding whether to cancel, retain or strengthen this type of funding in the future.
ERC Proof of Concept
)
is open only to ERC Grant holders. Grants of up to 150.000
€
are
awarded for up to 12 months. The blue sky research that the ERC has been supporting since its launch in 2007
often generates new discoveries, but also unexpected opportunities for commercial and societal applications.
The ERC is committed to ensure the full exploitation of the excellent ideas it funds and in 2011 it introduced
the “Proof of Concept” top-up grants to reduce the funding gap referred to as the “valley of death” that exists
between frontier research and the earliest stage of a (marketable) innovation. This targeted new funding scheme
will capture the maximum value of frontier research by getting good ideas one step further towards their utiliza-
tion by the market and by society.
The PoC Grant scheme is open to all Principal Investigators who already hold or recently finished an ERC
project. ERC Grant holders can apply for additional funding to establish the innovation potential of ideas arising
12
the
case of
GREECE
5
years of
Excellence in
the European
Research Area
2007-2011