The European Research Council – ERC, announced on 10 July 2024 the adoption by the European Commission of its Work Programme 2025, which is part of Horizon Europe, the Framework Programme of the EU for Research and Innovation 2021-2027. It will provide funding of 2.7 billion euros to excellent scientists in order to perform groundbreaking frontier research.

A novelty in the ERC Work Programme 2025, is the addition of two new reasons for extension of the eligibility window for Starting and Consolidator Grants, 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.

The timeline for the upcoming Calls for Proposals under the ERC Work Programme 2025 is presented in the following table:

The first Call for Proposals has already been announced. Specifically, ERC announced the ERC Starting Grant 2025 (ERC-2025-StG) Call for Proposals with a deadline on 15 October 2024 (17:00 Brussels time). The competitive ERC Starting Grants support excellent researchers with 2 up to 7 years of experience after their PhD (extended in specific cases, such as maternity), that can already demonstrate a promising track record of early achievements appropriate to their research field and career stage and want to implement a ground breaking, ambitious project in any scientific field. The only evaluation criterion is scientific excellence. The funding is up to 1.5 million euros for up to 5 years, while an additional 1 million euro can be made available in certain occasions. More information can be found in the Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls, in the ERC Work Programme 2025 and the rest of the official documents.

Regarding ERC grants, the Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF) can support potential applicants during proposal preparation, via personalised support, pre-screening and full proposal checks, support during the interview stage and more. Furthermore, RIF has been selected to participate in the ERC Mentoring Initiative, via which it can provide access to mentors (former ERC panel members or ERC grantees) for the researchers that it supports.

Interested researchers can contact the ERC National Contact Point (Katerina Karakasidou Malla, kkarakasidou@research.org.cy, tel. 22205036).