European Research Council (ERC)
The European Research Council (ERC) supports excellent frontier research by funding long-term individual projects (up to 5 years), proposed by high-potential Principal Investigators (PI) of any age and nationality, at any stage of their career.
The ERC encourages ambitious, innovative and groundbreaking projects aimed at advancing scientific and technological knowledge by developing a multi- or interdisciplinary approach. Particular attention is given to proposals focused on new or emerging fields.
The programme operates on a bottom-up basis, with no predetermined priorities. Proposals may be submitted in any field of research, across the three domains, divided into various panels relating to specific scientific areas:
- Physical Sciences and Engineering (11 panels);
- Life Sciences (9 panels);
- Social Sciences and Humanities (8 panels).
Scientific excellence is the sole evaluation criterion.
The ERC programme includes the following funding schemes:
STARTING GRANT
This scheme aims to fund excellent PIs who wish to establish their own research team and/or launch their own independent research. The PI must have defended the thesis for their first PhD at least 2 and at most 7 years before the year of the call deadline. PIs must be able to demonstrate the potential to conduct independent research and a good level of scientific maturity.
Winners of a Starting Grant may be awarded funding of up to €1.5 million for a period of 5 years.
CONSOLIDATOR GRANT
This scheme is designed to fund excellent PIs who are already conducting research and are consolidating their own research team and/or their own independent research. The PI must have defended the thesis for their first PhD at least 7 and at most 12 years before the year of the call deadline. PIs must be able to demonstrate research independence and strong scientific maturity.
Winners of a Consolidator Grant may be awarded up to €2 million for a period of 5 years.
ADVANCED GRANT
This scheme aims to fund excellent PIs who are already established as research leaders with a recognised track record of research achievements. PIs must be able to demonstrate their well-established independence and strong scientific maturity through significant research achievements over the last 10 years. There are no specific eligibility criteria.
Winners of an Advanced Grant may be awarded funding of up to €2.5 million for a period of 5 years.
SYNERGY GRANT
This scheme is designed to support projects that address a research problem so ambitious that it requires a team of 2-4 Principal Investigators (PI) - one of whom will be designated as the corresponding Principal Investigator (cPI). The PIs must work together and contribute their different expertise and resources to address ambitious research problems. The evaluation criterion assesses the project’s exceptional intrinsic synergistic effect. There are no specific eligibility criteria relating to academic background.
Winners of a Synergy Grant may receive up to a maximum of €10 million for a period of 6 years (pro rata for projects of shorter duration).
PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANT
This scheme is designed to promote the value of excellent research by supporting activities to explore the commercial or social innovative potential of ideas derived from ERC projects.
The call is aimed at researchers who have already received an ERC grant (StG, CoG, AdV, SyG) and wish to follow up an idea generated during their ERC projects. PIs who are carrying out their ERC project may apply, as may PIs whose grant ended less than 12 months before the year of the call deadline.
The Proof of Concept Grant may provide funding of up to a maximum of €150,000 for a period of 18 months.
Principal Investigators (PI) of any age and nationality who wish to carry out an innovative, ambitious and feasible research project. The eligibility conditions are defined in the Work Programme.
Since the ERC grant was established in 2007, the University of Padua has secured funding for 60 research projects. The researchers at our University have secured funding in all three ERC domains. Among Italian universities, the University of Padua ranks first in terms of funding obtained.
Candidates for an ERC call who choose the University of Padua as Host Institution, after approval by the selected host Department, may benefit from the following services:
- proposal writing: support during every stage of the preparation of the proposal (Part B1 and B2);
- review of the draft proposal;
- support in defining the budget;
- participation in training courses and coaching for interview simulation, carried out in collaboration with qualified experts (if the proposal passes to stage 2 of the evaluation process and the candidate is invited to the interview).
Winners of an ERC grant are offered a tenure-track position or a permanent position at our University, as well as a range of benefits determined by national regulations. The position offered to ERC winners must be agreed with their host Department. In addition, winners are supported during the negotiation phase with ERCEA and in the management and reporting of the project, in cooperation with the host Department.
In addition, the Università degli Studi di Padova promotes the scouting initiative "Talent@UniPD", with the aim of supporting excellent research to be carried out within its facilities, by attracting the most promising candidates who intend to compete for the annual ERC Starting Grant and Consolidator Grant calls. The selected researchers will benefit from dedicated measures offered by the University of Padua.
If your ERC project has received a score of "A", but cannot be funded due to the ERC's limited budget, our University offers the possibility of applying for alternative funding under the Supporting TAlent in ReSearch@University of Padua - STARS Grants (Wild Cards category): https://www.unipd.it/stars