ERC 2025

28/08/2025

The 2025 Work Programme of the European Research Council was finally adopted. The Work Programme (WP) sets out the budgets of the calls, the calendar of grant competition and conditions for ERC funding. 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 EU.

ERC welcomes proposals of an interdisciplinary nature, which cross the boundaries between different fields of research, pioneering proposals addressing new and emerging fields, or proposals introducing unconventional, innovative approaches and scientific inventions.

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 reference date towards the calculation of the eligibility period is the certified date of the successful viva (and not the award) of the first PhD degree of the candidate.

Starting Grant: PhD > 2 and ≤ 7 years before 1 January 2025 (between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2022);

Consolidator Grant: PhD > 7 and ≤ 12 years before 1 January 2025 (between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2017);

Advanced Grant: No specific criteria.

The eligibility periods set out can be extended beyond 7 and 12 years for the Starting and Consolidator Grants, respectively, for the following properly documented circumstances, provided they started before the call deadline, namely:

– Maternity: 18 months extension for each child born before or after the date of the successful viva. If the applicant can document a longer total maternity leave, the eligibility period will be extended by the documented number of actual leave(s).

– Paternity: extension by the documented time of paternity leave taken before the call deadline for each child born before or after the date of the successful viva of their first PhD degree.

– Long-term illness (over 90 days for the Principal Investigator or a close family member) or national service: extension by the documented amount of leave taken by the Principal Investigator before the call deadline for each incident, which occurred after the date of the successful viva. The 2025 WP introduces also new grounds for the extension of the eligibility periods for Starting Grants and Consolidator Grants. Extensions will be granted in duly documented cases, where the applicant has been prevented from working or their working hours have been reduced due to a disability or a major natural or man-made disaster. 

For Starting, Consolidator, Advanced, and Synergy grants, excellence is the sole criterion of evaluation. The panels will primarily evaluate the ground-breaking nature, ambition, and feasibility of the research project. At the same time, the panels will evaluate the intellectual capacity, creativity, and commitment of the Principal Investigator(s), with a focus on the extent to which the PI (s) has the required scientific expertise and capacity to successfully execute the project. In the case of a Synergy Grant application, the peer reviewers will need to see the collaborative working arrangements between the PI, described as part of the research methodology.

For Starting, Consolidator, and Advanced Grants a single submission of the proposal will be followed by a two-step evaluation. At step 1, the Extended Synopsis and the Principal Investigator’s CV and Track Record will be assessed. Based on the outcome of the evaluation at step 1, a maximum of 44 proposals per panel are assessed at step 2 of the evaluation. Moreover, a distinction in the scoring at step 1 is made between proposals obtaining a score of A and invited to step 2 of the evaluation, and proposals obtaining a score of A but not ranked sufficiently high to be invited to step 2. At step 2, the entire research proposal will be assessed. At the end of step 2, the proposal will receive one of the following scores: A. fully meets the ERC’s excellence criterion and is recommended for funding if sufficient funds are available; B. meets some but not all elements of the ERC’s excellence criterion and will not be funded.

For Synergy Grants A single submission of the proposal will be followed by a three-step evaluation, including interviews.

If you are considering applying, you should consult these essential documents: