The 2027 Work Programme of the European Research Council has been adopted. The Programme sets out funding opportunities, grant budgets, competition timetable and application rules for the coming year.
The ERC was set up to support excellence in research through grants that tackle issues at the frontiers of existing knowledge. It provides flexible longer-term, portable funding, and independence for researchers and their teams to pursue ambitious and high-risk research. An ERC grant is awarded to a Host Institution that commits to engage and host a Principal Investigator(s) and their team(s), and to offer them appropriate conditions to manage the ERC funded research.
Provisional Details on the Main Calls for Proposals under Work Programme 2027 1,2,3
1These dates are provisional. The Director of the European Research Council Executive Agency may open a call up to one month prior to or after the envisaged opening date or delay the call deadline by up to two months. The budget amounts for 2027 are subject to the availability of the appropriations after the adoption of the EU Budget by the Budgetary Authority, or if the budget is not adopted, as provided for in the system of provisional twelfths.
2In addition to the indicative amount from the ERC 2027 budget, ERCEA may use Union funds allocated to Member States under shared management and transferred to the Horizon Europe budget to fund, exclusively, proposals that have received a score of ‘A’ but cannot be funded due to budget constraints, and have their Host Institution – and, where relevant, any additional beneficiary requesting EU funding – established in the Member State that has requested such transfer (in accordance with Article 15 (5) Regulation (EU) 2021/695 of the European Parliament and of the Council).
3The deadlines for the 2027 calls fall both in 2026 and 2027. The year of the Work Programme under which a call is published is included in the Call Identifier (e.g. ERC-2027-StG).
4The ERC Plus Grant call is part of the Choose Europe initiative introduced by Commission President von der Leyen and Commissioner Zaharieva.
ERC grant schemes are open to researchers of any age and nationality, residing anywhere in the world at the time of application, and wishing to carry out their research in one of the EU or Associated Country-based Host Institutions.
Principal Investigators applying to Starting or Consolidator Grant calls must meet the following specific eligibility criteria:
Through the EU Funding & Tenders portal.