ERC Starting Grants (2026)

The conditions specific to ERC grants are described in the ERC Work Programme 2026 under the heading 'Admissibility, Eligibility, Resubmission Restrictions' and in the ERC Rules of Submission and Evaluation under Horizon Europe. An overview is provided below:

Admissibility: A proposal must be complete (including all sections under 1.5 Proposal Submission and Description section), readable and accessible. It must be submitted electronically by a Principal Investigator fulfilling the eligibility criteria (section 1.4.2.2 Eligible Principal Investigator(s)) before the respective call deadline. Proposals that do not meet these criteria or do not include a statement of support 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 the ERC Work Programme 2026 (section 1.1 Objectives of ERC Grant Schemes). If a proposal is considered not to relate to the objectives of the grant or call for proposals, it will be declared ineligible.

Eligible Principal Investigators: The 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 orAssociated Country-based Host Institutions(see Annex 3 of theERC Work Programme 2026).

Principal Investigators applying to the Starting Grants must meet specific eligibility criteria based on the time elapsed between the date of the successful defence of their first PhD degree or an equivalent doctoral degree as described in theERC Work Programme 2026(see also Annex 2'ERC policy on PhD and equivalent doctoral degrees' and specific provisions for applicants holding a degree in medicine).

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

Eligible Host Institution:Any type of legal entity, public or private, including a university, a researchorganisation or an undertaking can host a Principal Investigator and their team. 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 be established either in an EU Member State or anAssociated Country (see Annex 3 of theERC Work Programme 2026)as a legal entity created under national law, or it may be an international European research organisation (such as CERN, EMBL, etc.), or any other entity created under EU law.International organisations with headquarters in an EU Member State or an Associated Country shall be deemed to be established in that Member State or Associated Country.

Eligible countries:

The conditions specific to the ERC are described in theERC Work Programme 2026under the heading 'Admissibility, eligibility and resubmission restrictions' and in Annex 3. An overview is provided below:

The ERC actions 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 Member State or Associated Country-based Host Institutions(see Annex 3 of theERC Work Programme 2026). Principal Investigators funded through the ERC frontier research grants shall spend a minimum percentage of their working time on the ERC project (50%) and a minimum percentage of their working time in an EU Member State or an Associated Country (50%).

Eligible Scientific Field: Applications in any field of science are eligible for the ERC funding and the ERC welcomes research proposals of an interdisciplinary nature.

Restrictions on applications:Given the large number of applications received every year, and the need to uphold the quality and integrity of the evaluation process, restrictions apply. For further details please consult the ERC Work Programme 2026, heading'Restrictions on applications’and the corresponding Table 6 or theFrequently Asked Questions.

Proposals for Starting calls are submitted by the Principal Investigator, on behalf of the Host Institution (also referred to as the applicant legal entity); the responsibility for the research conducted as part of the project rests with the Principal Investigator.

The applicant shall choose a primary evaluation panel (as listed in Annex 1) and may also list a secondary evaluation panel. The applicant should indicate when they believe that the proposal is of a cross-panel or cross-domain nature.

Complete proposals must be submitted via the submission tool available through the Funding & Tenders Portal (to access the submission tool, you need to register first). More information can be found in the ERC Information for Applicants and in the ERC Work Programme 2026 under the heading ‘Proposal Submission and Description’.

Proposals that do not include some or all of the sections listed below may be declared inadmissible. A complete proposalconsists of the following elements (with the following page limits):

·The Administrative form Part A(including the Ethics Issues Table and the Budget Section) is available in the submission tool below.The budget table and the justification of the Resources are part of this online form Part A (Section 3 - Budget). For more details, please refer to section 2.3 of theERC Information for Applicants.

·Parts B(Part I of the Scientific Proposal, Curriculum Vitae and Track Record, Part II of the Scientific Proposal) and the Host Institution SupportLetter templates are provided in the submission systemas word-templates(they should be completed, uploaded and submitted via the submission tool as PDF files).

·Part I of the Scientific Proposal: up to 5 pages

·Part II of the Scientific Proposal: up to 7 pages

·Curriculum Vitae and Track Record: up to 4 pages

·Resources and Time Commitment: up to 2 pages

·Host Institution Support Letter

·Ethics Issues Table

·PhD record and supporting documents for eligibility checking

Financial capacity: Please refer to the ERC Rules of Submission and Evaluation under Horizon Europe, section 4, ‘Award Decision and Preparation of Grant Agreements’.

Operational capacity:As indicated in theERC Work Programme 2026:An applicant whose proposal is marked above the 80% quality threshold is deemed to fulfil the operational capacity requirements of Article 201(3)of the EU Financial Regulation.

Exclusion:Please refer to theERC Work Programme 2026, 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 sanction of exclusion or are in one of the exclusion situations set out by the EU Financial Regulation are banned from receiving EU grants and CANNOT participate.

The conditions specific to ERC are described in the ERC Work Programme 2026 under the heading 'Evaluation criterion, elements and procedure’ and in the ERC Rules of Submission and Evaluation under Horizon Europe, section 3.6 The evaluation of ERC grants. An overview is provided below:

Evaluation criterion

For all the main grants, excellence is the sole criterion of evaluation. The panels will primarily evaluate: the ground-breaking nature and ambition of the research project and, at the same time, the intellectual capacity and creativity of the Principal Investigator, with a focus on the extent to which the PI has the required scientific expertise and capacity to successfully execute the project. The detailed evaluation elements applying to the excellence of the research project and the Principal Investigator are set out in the ERC Work Programme 2026.

Evaluation procedure

The proposal is evaluated in two steps with interviews taking place at Step 2. The evaluation is carried out by peer review panels as listed in Annex 1 of theERC Work Programme 2026. The panels may be assisted by independent external experts working remotely.

Evaluation Outcome

At the end of Step 1 of the evaluation, each proposal receives one of the following scores:

·A invited: the proposal is of excellent quality and ranked sufficiently high to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation;

·A not invited: the proposal is of excellent quality but not ranked sufficiently high to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation;

·B: the proposal is of high quality but not sufficient to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation;

·C: the proposal is not of sufficient quality to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation.

At the end of Step 2 of the evaluation, the proposal receives one of the following scores:

A: the proposal fully meets the excellence criterion and is recommended for funding should sufficient funds be available;

B: the proposal meets some but not all elements of the excellence criterion and will not be funded.

Please refer to the ERC Work Programme 2026 under the heading 'Table 1: Provisional Details on the Main Calls for Proposals under Work Programme 2026’.

During the grant preparation stage, the consortium will be asked to prepare the grant agreement, together with the EU project officer. This grant agreement will set out the framework for the grant and its terms and conditions, particularly concerning deliverables, reporting and payments. The applicable model with the complete text of the provisions is available on the topic page, together with the other call documentation.

Please refer to the MGA used for ERC actions under Horizon Europe (HE General MGA).

Under Horizon Europe, all beneficiaries (including those of ERC grants) must ensure immediate open access to all peer-reviewed scientific publications relating to their results as set out in the Model Grant Agreement used for ERC actions. Open access must 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 Model Grant Agreement used for ERC actions. 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.