ERC Advanced Grants (ERC-2024-ADG)

Topic updates

17 June 2025

EVALUATION results

Published: 29 May 2024

Deadline: 29 August 2024

Available budget: EUR 703 500 000

The ERCEA, assisted by independent experts, has completed the evaluation of proposals submitted to the above call. The names of the experts that evaluated Horizon Europe proposals are published, collectively for each part of Horizon Europe and once per year, on the FUNDING & TENDERS PORTAL.

The results of the evaluation are as follows:

Number of proposals submitted: 2534

Number of inadmissible proposals: 6

Number of ineligible proposals: 49

Number of above-threshold proposals [1]: 540

Total budget requested for above-threshold proposals [1]: 1.396.273.330 €

We informed the applicants about the evaluation results for their proposals on 02 June 2025.

[1] The number of proposals that can finally be funded depends on the available budget and the completion of the formal procedures needed to conclude grant agreements.

The first grant agreements are expected to be signed in June 2025.

Information on the selected projects will be published on CORDIS.

For questions, please contact the Research Enquiry Service.

13 September 2024

The ERC-2024-ADG call closed on 29th August 2024.

A total of 2534 proposals were submitted in response to the ERC 2024 Advanced Grant Call (ERC-2024-ADG). The preliminary data on submitted proposals for each domain is shown below:

· Physical Sciences and Engineering (Panels PE1 to PE11): 1068

· Life Sciences (Panels LS1 to LS9): 730

· Social Sciences and Humanities (Panels SH1 to SH8): 736

ERC ADVANCED GRANTS

TOPIC ID: ERC-2024-ADG

Type of grant: Call for proposals

General information

Programme: Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON)

Call: Call for Proposals for ERC Advanced Grant (ERC-2024-ADG)

Type of action: HORIZON-ERC HORIZON ERC Grants

Type of MGA: HORIZON Lump Sum Grant [HORIZON-AG-LS]

Status: Forthcoming

Deadline model: single-stage

Planned Opening Date: 29 May 2024

Deadline dates: 29 August 2024 17:00 (Brussels time)

Topic description

Scope:

Objectives

ERC Advanced Grants are designed to support excellent Principal Investigators at the career stage at which they are already established research leaders with a recognised track record of research achievements. Principal Investigators must demonstrate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their research proposal.

Size of ERC Advanced Grants

Advanced Grants may be awarded up to a maximum of EUR 2 500 000 for a period of 5 years (the maximum amount of the grants is reduced pro rata temporis for projects of a shorter duration).

However, up to an additional EUR 1 000 000 can be requested in the proposal to cover (a) eligible "start-up" costs for Principal Investigators moving to the EU or an Associated Country from elsewhere as a consequence of receiving the ERC grant, and/or (b) the purchase of major equipment, and/or (c) access to large facilities, and/or (d) other major experimental and field work costs, excluding personnel costs. (As any additional funding is to cover major one-off costs it is not subject to pro-rata temporis reduction for projects of shorter duration. All funding requested is assessed during evaluation).

The Advanced Grant will be awarded as a single lump sum contribution for the entirety of the project. The lump sum will cover the beneficiaries' estimated costs for the project.

Profile of the ERC Advanced Grant Principal Investigator

ERC Advanced Grant Principal Investigators are expected to be active researchers and to have a track record of significant research achievements.

For further information, please see the ERC Work Programme 2024.

General conditions

1.Admissibility and Eligibility Conditions:

The conditions specific to ERC grants are described in theERC Work Programme 2024under the heading 'Admissibility and eligibility criteria' and in theERC Rules of Submission. An overview is provided below:

Admissible and eligible proposals:All proposals must be complete, readable and accessible. They must be submitted by eligible Principal Investigators before the relevant call deadline. A complete proposal needs to include all parts or sections (see 'Proposal submission and description' below). Proposals which do not meet these criteria may be declared inadmissible. The content of the proposal must relate to the objectives and to the grant type set out in the call, as defined in theERC Work Programme 2024.If a proposal is considered not to relate to the objectives of the grant and/or call for proposals, it will be declared ineligible.

Applications where the Principal Investigator proposes to commit less time in the EU or an Associated Country, or to the project than the minimum percentages set out in the section 'Minimum time commitment' of the Work Programme will be declared ineligible. If it becomes clear before, during or after the peer review evaluation phase that one or more of the admissibility or eligibility criteria have not been met, the proposal will be declared inadmissible or ineligible and it will be rejected. Where there is a doubt on the admissibility or eligibility of a proposal, the peer review evaluation may proceed pending a decision following an admissibility and eligibility review committee.

Eligible Principal Investigators:The ERC actions are open to researchers of any nationality who intend to conduct their research activity in any EU Member State orAssociated Country (see Annex 3 of theERC Work Programme 2024).Principal Investigators may be of any age and nationality andmay reside in any country in the world at the time of the application.

All Principal Investigators funded through an ERC Advanced Grant must spend a minimum of 50% of their working time in an EUMember State or Associated Country and a minimum of 30% of their working time on the ERC project.

Eligible Host Institution:The Host Institution (Applicant Legal Entity) must engage and host the Principal Investigator for at least the durationof the project, as defined in the grant agreement. It must either be established in an EU Member State orAssociated Country (see Annex 3 of theERC Work Programme 2024)as a legal entity created under national law, or it may be an international European research organisation (such as CERN, EMBL, etc.), the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) or any other entity created under EU law.International organisations with headquarters in a Member State or Associated Country will be deemed to be established in that Member State or Associated Country.Any type of legal entity, public or private, including universities, researchorganisations and undertakings can host Principal Investigators and their teams.

Restrictions on submission of proposals:The restrictions for submission related to the outcome of the evaluation in previous calls are designed to allow unsuccessful Principal Investigators the time necessary to develop a stronger proposal. For further details please consult theERC Work Programme 2024, heading'Restrictions on submission of proposals'or theFrequently Asked Questions.

Proposal submission and description:

• The Administrative form Part A(including the Ethics Issues Table, the Security Issues Table and the Budget Section) is available in the submission tool below.The budget table and the description of resources are part of this online form Part A (Section 3 - Budget). For more details, please refer to section 2.2 of the ERC Information for Applicants to the Advanced Grant 2024 call.
• Part B1, Part B2 and the Host Institution Binding Statement of Supporttemplates are provided in the submission systemas Word templates(they should be completed, uploaded and submitted via the submission tool as PDF files).
• The Equipment table template is provided in the submission systemas an Excel template(it should be completed, uploaded and submitted via the submission tool as an Excel file).

Acomplete proposalconsists of the following elements (with the following page limits):

§Extended Synopsis: 5 pages (Part B1)

§Curriculum Vitae and Track Record: 4 pages max. (Part B1)

§Scientific Proposal: 14 pages (Part B2)

§Budget (Part A, Section 3) and Time Commitment (Part A, Section 5)

§Host Institution Binding Statementof Support

§Ethics Issues Table (Part A, Section 4)

§Security Issues Table (Part A, Section 4)

Complete proposals must be submitted via the submission tool available through theFunding & Tenders Portal(to access the submission tool, you need to register first).

2. Eligible countries:

The conditions specific to the ERC are described in theERC Work Programme 2024under the heading 'Admissibility and eligibility criteria' and in Annex 3. An overview is provided below:

The ERC actions are open to researchers of any nationality who intend to conduct their research activity in any EU Member State or Associated Country (see Annex 3 of theERC Work Programme 2024). Principal Investigators may reside in any country in the world at the time of the application. Principal Investigators funded through the ERC Advanced Grants shall spend a minimum percentage of their working time on the ERC project (30%) and a minimum percentage of their working time in an EU Member State or Associated Country (50%).

For details about the eligibleHost Institution(Applicant Legal Entity)see section 1 above on 'Admissibility and Eligibility Conditions'.

3. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion:

Financial capacity:Please refer to theERC Rules of Submission,section 4, 'Award Decision and Preparation of Grant Agreements'.

Operational capacity: As indicated in theERC Work Programme 2024, applicants whose proposals are recommended for funding are deemed to fulfil the operational capacity requirements of Article 198(3)of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 2018/1046(the 'EU Financial Regulation').

Exclusion:Please refer to theERC Work Programme 2024, section 'Prior Information of Candidates, Tenderers, Grant Applicants, and remunerated experts - registration of information in the Early Detection and Exclusion System (EDES)'.Applicants that are subject to the administrative sanctions of exclusion or are in one of the exclusion situations set out by the EU Financial Regulation are banned from receiving EU grants and can NOT participate.

4. Evaluation:

The conditions specific to ERC are described in theERC Work Programme 2024under the heading 'Evaluation procedure and criteria' and in theERC Rules of Submission. An overview is provided below:

Evaluation procedure: For the Advanced Grant call asingle submission of the proposalwill be followed by atwo-step evaluation. The evaluation will be conducted by means of a structure of high-level peer review panels as listed in Annex 1 of theERC Work Programme 2024. The panels may be assisted by independent external experts working remotely.

Evaluation criteria: For all of the ERC main grants,scientific excellence is the sole criterion of evaluation. It will be applied in conjunction to the evaluation of both: the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of the research project and the intellectual capacity, creativity and commitment of the Principal Investigator. The detailed evaluation elements applying to the excellence of the research project and the Principal Investigator are set out in theERC Work Programme 2024.

6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants:

Please refer to theMulti & Mono Grant Agreement for Lump Sum Grantsand Annex 5 of the MGA used for ERC actions under Horizon Europe (HE General MGA).

Specific conditions

Open Science:

Open science is a core principle of the ERC. The ERC is committed to the principle of open access to the published output of research, including in particular peer-reviewed articles and monographs. It also supports the basic principle of open access to research data and data-related products such as computer code, algorithms, software, workflows, protocols or any other forms of research output. The ERC considers that providing free online access to all these materials can be the most effective way of ensuring that the results of the research it funds can be accessed, read and used as the basis for further advancement.

Under Horizon Europe, beneficiaries of ERC grants must ensure immediate open access to all peer-reviewed scientific publications relating to their results as set out in the Annex 5 ‘Specific rules’ of the HEGeneral MGA. Open access has to be provided with full re-use rights. Beneficiaries must ensure that they or the authors retain sufficient intellectual property rights to comply with their open access requirements. Publishing costs can be considered as eligible costs provided that the publishing venue (e.g. journal, book) is fully open access.

In addition, beneficiaries of ERC grants funded under this Work Programme will be covered by the provisions on research data management as set out in the Annex 5 ‘Specific rules’ of the HE General MGA. In particular, whenever a project generates research data, beneficiaries are required to manage it in line with the principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability as described by the FAIR principles initiative, and establish a data management plan within the first six months of project implementation. Open access to research data should be ensured under the principle ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’. These provisions are designed to facilitate access, re-use and preservation of the research data generated during the ERC funded research work.

Start submission

The submission system is planned to be opened on the date stated on the topic header.

Get support

ERC 2024 Advanced Grant Applicants Mailbox–for queries related to the call.

Online Manualis your guide on the procedures from proposal submission to managing your grant.

Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ– find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management.

Research Enquiry Service– ask questions about any aspect of European research in general and the EU Research Framework Programmes in particular.

ERC National Contact Points (NCPs)– get guidance, practical information and assistance on participation in Horizon Europe. There are also NCPs in many non-EU and non-associated countries (‘third-countries’).

IT Helpdesk–contact the Funding & Tenders Portal IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc.

European IPR Helpdeskassists you on intellectual property issues.

The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment– consult the general principles and requirements specifying the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers, employers and funders of researchers.