New ERC calls pub­lished under Hori­zon 2020

The ERC annu­ally launches calls for pro­pos­als in three fund­ing schemes: Start­ing Grants, Con­sol­id­at­or Grants and Advanced Grants. It provides fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for excel­lent research­ers of any nation­al­ity who wish to carry out their research at an insti­tu­tion in Europe.

Start­ing Grants

Along with the work pro­gramme, the ERC opened the calls for the ​„Start­ing Grants“ scheme. They are designed for excel­lent young sci­ent­ists of all nation­al­it­ies with 2 – 7 years of exper­i­ence fol­low­ing their PhD. Dead­line for this call is 17 Novem­ber 2015.

Con­sol­id­at­or Grants

The ​„Con­sol­id­at­or Grants“ call will be open from 15 Octo­ber 2015 until 2 Feb­ru­ary 2016. ERC Con­sol­id­at­or Grants sup­port prom­ising research­ers who are at the begin­ning of an inde­pend­ent research career and who are between 7 – 12 years after achiev­ing their PhD.

Advanced Grants

The applic­a­tion under the ​„Advanced Grants“ scheme will open next year from 24 May 2016 until 1 Septem­ber 2016. The call for ​“Advanced Grants” addresses excel­lent, estab­lished research­ers with a research exper­i­ence of more than 10 years. *** The grants are awar­ded for a peri­od of up to five years with a fund­ing amount of up to 2 mil­lion euros for ​“Start­ing Grants”, 2.75 mil­lion euros for ​„Con­sol­id­at­or Grants“ and up to 3.5 mil­lion euros for ​“Advanced Grants”. All schemes are open to research­ers of any nation­al­ity and any cur­rent place of work. How­ever, ERC pro­jects must be car­ried out at an insti­tu­tion in Europe. Calls for the fund­ing scheme ​“Proof of Concept” are set to open on 22 Octo­ber 2015. This scheme exclus­ively tar­gets ERC grant hold­ers who seek to estab­lish the innov­a­tion poten­tial of ideas arising from their ERC-fun­ded pro­jects. Research­ers can apply for the dead­lines 16 Feb­ru­ary 2016, 26 May 2016 and 4 Octo­ber 2016.

Provid­ing advice to applicants

The Ger­man Nation­al Con­tact Point ERC (NCP ERC), a col­lab­or­a­tion between the EU-Bur­eau of the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Research (EU-Büro des BMBF) and the ​“European Liais­on Office of the Ger­man Research Organ­isa­tions” (Koop­er­a­tionss­telle EU der Wis­senschaft­sor­gan­isa­tion­en — KoWi), offers its free-of-charge ser­vices to any research­er with a (future) host insti­tu­tion in Ger­many. Besides ren­der­ing indi­vidu­al advice to applic­ants, the NCP ERC also offers work­shops and inform­a­tion ses­sions on ERC in Ger­many. The DLR Pro­ject Man­age­ment Agency in the Ger­man Aerospace Centre (DLR) unites sev­er­al tasks and ser­vices under a single roof and acts ini­tially as a con­tact point for gen­er­al inform­a­tion and ques­tions regard­ing the EU Research Frame­work Pro­gramme. Organ­isa­tions and poten­tial grantees may find inform­a­tion and the NCP ERC event cal­en­dar on www​.erc​-ger​many​.de (in Eng­lish) or www​.nks​-erc​.de (in Ger­man). The NCP team will be happy to answer any ques­tions con­cern­ing the applic­a­tion. Source: idw