The 2025 Work Programme of the European Research Council has been adopted. The Programme sets out funding opportunities, budgets of the calls, the calendar of grant competition and conditions for ERC funding. The document had been drafted and endorsed by the ERC Scientific Council, and adopted by the European Commission.
More than 2.7 billion euro will be available for research grants in the coming year. This includes contributions from the countries associated to Horizon Europe. In addition, EU countries can allocate resources from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to help the ERC fund proposals rated as excellent, but which cannot be funded due to budget constraints. These grants must however remain hosted at an institution in the country which contributes their ERDF funds.
ERC grants are open to researchers of any nationality who may reside in any country in the world at the time of the application.
The Starting, Consolidator, and Advanced Grants will support projects carried out by individual teams, which are headed by a single Principal Investigator. ERC Synergy Grants will support small groups of two to four Principal Investigators and their teams with a designated Corresponding Principal Investigator.
The constitution of the research teams is flexible. Depending on the nature of a project, the research team may involve team members from other research organisations situated in the same or in a different country (see “Eligible host institution”). ERC Synergy Grant Groups are neither networks nor consortia of undertakings, universities, research centres, or other legal entities.