A Principal Investigator (PI) can submit a proposal to the SyG call for proposal if their existing ERC project ends no more than two years after the SyG call deadline (cf. ERC Work Programme 2020, section "Restrictions on submission of proposals"). For the 2020 SyG call, this means that the ongoing grant has to end before 5 November 2021. A PI may hold only one ERC grant at any time. A new frontier research project can only start after the duration of the project fixed in a previous frontier research grant agreement has ended (cf. ERC Work Programme 2020). These eligibility requirements regarding grantees are the same as for the other frontier research grants.
The reporting requirements for an ERC research frontier projects granted under H2020 Programme (Starting Grant / Consolidator Grant / Advanced Grant or Synergy Grant) foresee two different reporting streams to cover the financial aspects, on the one hand, and the scientific aspects of the grant, on the other hand, as described in Article 20 of the ERC Model Grant Agreement. Scientific reports are the sole responsibility of the Principal Investigator and are submitted via the Host Institution usually twice during the lifetime of a project (at mid-term and at the end). The financial reports are prepared by the Host Institution in consultation with the Principal Investigator and must usually be submitted every 18 months; this report must include information on the use of resources and the general implementation of the project (see Article 20.3 of ERC Model Grant Agreement). At the end of a project, the Host Institution will also have to submit a Certificate on Financial Statements for each beneficiary (and linked third party) depending on the amount of the costs claimed (if the entity requests a total contribution of €325 000 or more). Both types of reports (scientific and financial) are prepared and submitted online via the Funding & Tenders Portal.
The information about the ERC Synergy Grants (SyG) can be found in the ERC Work Programme 2020, in the Information for Applicants to the Synergy Grant 2020 call, in the Information Package of the submission webpage for the relevant call and through the ERC website.
There are no shares or quotas by domain or discipline for the ERC 2020 Proof of Concept (ERC-2020-PoC) call.No domain or field is excluded[1] and the possibility for innovation arising from the social sciences and humanities to apply for a PoC funding is fully recognised.
[1] As stated in the ERC Work Programme 2020: “Research proposals within the scope of Annex I to the Euratom Treaty, namely those directed towards nuclear energy applications, shall be submitted to relevant calls under the Euratom Framework Programme.”
No, the timesheets are not needed for the contractual obligations of an ERC 2020 Proof of Concept (ERC-2020-PoC) project.
For more information, please refer to the Multi- Beneficiary Model Grant Agreement for the ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) Lump Sum Pilot (H2020 ERC MGA PoC Lump Sum Pilot — Multi & Mono).
For ERC Proof of Concept (ERC-2020-PoC) Lump Sum Pilot actions, beneficiaries do not need to keep records on their actual costs for the purpose of proving the actual utilisation of the grant contribution; they only need to keep appropriate and sufficient evidence (documentation, records) that the action tasks (as described in Annex 1) were properly carried out.
For more information, please refer to the Multi-Beneficiary Model Grant Agreement for the ERC PoC Lump Sum Pilot (H2020 ERC MGA PoC Lump Sum Pilot — Multi & Mono).
No, co-investigators are not eligible for an ERC PoC Grant. Only Principal Investigators (PIs) in research main grants (ERC StG, CoG or AdG Grants), as well as PIs and corresponding PI of SyG Grants are eligible to submit a proposal to the ERC-2020-PoC call. More information on the eligibility criteria for the PIs can be found in the ERC Work Programme 2020, in the section relevant to the call.
Reviewers will evaluate independently each eligible proposal submitted under the ERC 2020 Proof of Concept (ERC-2020-PoC) call, and mark it as "very good", "good" or "fail" for each of the three evaluation criteria.
The applicants are provided with feedback on the outcome of the evaluation through an information letter and an evaluation report. The evaluation report indicates whether the proposal is retained for funding or not, and provides the "very good", "good" or "fail" status for each of the three criteria, with corresponding comments given by the reviewers.
More information on the evaluation procedure can be found in the ERC Work Programme 2020, in the section relevant to the call.
For the ERC 2020 PoC call, although it is not mandatory to provide the names of individual team members or their CVs, the PoC plan needs to include justification that the persons working on the tasks are well qualified for the purpose.
The description of the team needs to be filled in the Part B – section 3b. More information on the submission and evaluation procedures can be found in the ERC Work Programme 2020, in the section relevant to the call, as well as in the guide Information for Applicants to the Proof of Concept Grant 2020 Call.
For the Proof of Concept (ERC-2020-PoC) 2020 call, applicants submit the whole proposal that will be evaluated in a single step by independent experts. For more information on the evaluation process, please refer to the ERC Work Programme 2020.
