According to the ERC Work Programme 2021, for medical doctors (or applicants holding a degree in medicine), a first degree in medicine will not be accepted by itself as equivalent to a PhD award. To be considered an eligible Principal Investigator, applicants holding a degree in medicine need to provide the certificates of both the medical degree and a PhD or proof of an appointment that requires doctoral equivalency (e.g. post-doctoral fellowship, professorship appointment). Additionally, applicants must also provide information on their research experience (including peer-reviewed publications) in order to further substantiate the equivalence of their overall training to a PhD. In these cases, the certified date of the medical degree completion plus two years is the reference date of the actual award used for the calculation of the eligibility time period established for Consolidator Grant in the section "Eligible Principal Investigator". For more information, see sections 'Admissibility and eligibility criteria' and Annex 2 ERC policy on PhD and equivalent doctoral degrees' of the ERC Work Programme 2021 and section 4.3 of the Information for Applicants document to the Starting (ERC-2021-STG) and Consolidator Grant (ERC-2021-COG) 2021 Calls.
According to the conditions of the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, it is the applicant’s responsibility to choose and indicate the most relevant ERC Panel (‘primary evaluation panel’) for the evaluation of the proposed research and to indicate one or more ERC key words representing the research fields involved. The PI may indicate a second relevant panel. The initial allocation of the proposal to a panel will be based on the preference expressed by the applicant. However, when necessary due to the expertise required for the evaluation, a proposal may be reallocated to a different panel with the agreement of both panel chairs concerned. The composition of the ERC evaluation panels are by nature multi-disciplinary. The primary allocated panel will determine if additional reviews by appropriate members of other panel(s) or additional remote experts are needed. The applicant should indicate when they believe that their proposal is of a cross-panel or cross-domain nature. Further explanations can be found in the Information for Applicants document to the Starting and Consolidator Grant 2021 Calls.
According to the conditions applied to the ERC frontier research Grants 2021, there are four main restrictions to be considered for Principal Investigators in this regard:
These restrictions are specified in the ERC Work Programme 2021 and may be modified in future work programmes by the ERC Scientific Council in the light of experience. Please note however that it is possible to participate in more than one ERC grant as a team member.
As indicated in the ERC Work Programme 2021, the eligibility periods can be extended in case of specific and properly documented circumstances. In case of maternity, the Principal Investigators (PIs) may request: 18 months extension for each child born before or after the PhD award. If the applicant can document a longer maternity leave, the eligibility period will be extended by the documented amount of actual leave taken until the call deadline.
The ERCEA is trying to follow the national rules in order to accommodate different couple/family scenarios. Hence, for the partner who was entitled to ‘maternity leave’ according to the national rules we would apply the same, provided that it is properly documented.
If, in light of the above, the male applicant considers that he should be entitled to the extension based on maternity leave, he should make the case and together with his application submit all relevant supporting documentation, including also documents from the national Social Security scheme (see more details on the supporting documents in the Information for Applicants).
The budget table and description of resources are part of the online submission form Part A (Section 3 - Budget). The description and justification of the resources should be provided in the text box (Section C. Resources) under the budget table.
The budget section contains the proposal budget including the ‘total eligible project costs’ and the ‘Requested EU contribution’ for the project. The budget is subdivided in personnel costs, travel and subsistence, equipment, consumables, publications (including any costs related to Open Access), other additional direct costs, internally invoiced goods and services, and any envisaged subcontracting costs. The budget table will provide automatically one budget line per beneficiary. Applicants should indicate the costs for each cost category as accurately as possible using only Euro integers.
In case the ‘total eligible costs’ differ from the ‘requested EU contribution’, specify in the Resources section what exactly is funded from other sources.
Applicants should carefully check all the values of the budget table. The ‘Total eligible costs’ of the project will be automatically calculated based on the figures inserted in the individual columns. The ‘Requested EU contribution’ has to be filled in manually. Please make sure to update the ‘Requested EU contribution’ if updates are made in any of the cost categories.
In the Section C. Resources, the applicant should state and fully justify the amount of funding considered necessary to fulfil the objectives for the duration of the project. The project cost estimation should be as accurate as possible. The evaluation panels assess the estimated costs carefully; unjustified budgets will be consequently reduced.
Applicants should:
More explanation can be found in the ERC Information for Applicants.
The budget table and description of resources will be extracted from the online submission form Part A (Section 3 - Budget) and made available to the experts evaluating the proposal. Please see Annex 4.6 of the Information for Applicants document for an example of the Proposal Budget Report. It shows how experts will see the information entered in section 3 - Budget (including “Section C. Resources”).
The budget table and the justification of the Resources will not count towards the page limit of Part B2 anymore (which is a change compared to the StG 2020 call).
The budget table and description of resources are part of the online submission form Part A (Section 3 – Budget). The section C. resources has a maximum length of 8000 characters (including spaces) which corresponds approximately to 2 pages. Please refer to section 2.3 of the Information for Applicants document for further instruction on how to draw up the budget.
The budget table and description of resources are part of the online submission form Part A (Section 3 - Budget). The description and justification of the resources should be provided in the text box (Section C. Resources) under the budget table.
The applicant should NOT include any description of resources or budget table in Part B2.
According to the conditions of the ERC Starting Grant 2021 call, the only eligible career breaks that can be considered for the extension of the eligibility window are: maternity or paternity leave (before or after PhD award), long-term illness (over ninety days for the Principal Investigator or a close family member) (after PhD award), clinical training (after award of first eligible degree and by up to 4 years max.), national service (after PhD award). All these circumstances need to be properly documented. Please find below examples of such documents:
For maternity: birth certificate(s) or passport(s) of the child(ren), family book or any other official document that links the mother and the child(ren). For extension requests above 18 months per child, an official signed document from the employer certifying start and end date(s) of the individual leave(s) must be submitted. Any document should mention the reason for the leave. If the leave was conducted as a part-time leave this should be stated. It is acceptable if the time off work happened over several periods.
For paternity leave taken: an official signed document from the employer certifying start and end date(s) of the individual leave(s); an official document proving the PI's right to social paternity benefits can also be accepted. Any document should mention the reason for the leave. If the leave was conducted as a part-time leave, this should be stated. It is acceptable if the time off work happened over several periods.
For clinical training: an official document signed by the employer (usually a hospital) certifying start and end date(s) of the individual training period(s). Any document should mention the type of training. If the training was conducted part-time, this should be stated. It is acceptable if the training happened over several periods and for different clinical specialties.
For long-term illness (over ninety days for the Principal Investigator or a close family member such as a child, spouse, parent or sibling):
- For the PI: an official, signed document from the employer certifying start and end date(s) of the individual leave(s) or a medical record that indicates work incapability with the start and end date(s) of the illness period(s). Any document should mention the reason for the leave. If the leave was conducted as a part-time leave, this should be stated. It is acceptable if the time off work happened over several periods, as long as the leaves were related to the same illness or condition.
- For taking care of close family members: an official signed document from the employer certifying start and end date(s) of the individual leave(s). Any document should mention the reason for the leave. If the leave was conducted as a part-time leave, this should be stated. It is acceptable if the time off work happened over several periods, as long as the leaves were related to the same illness or condition. Furthermore, the request should be supported by an official document explaining the long-term nature of the illness or condition of the applicant or the close family member (e.g. from a hospital, a doctor or an insurance company). The supporting documents should also prove the family relationship in case the extension request relates to caring for a seriously ill close family member.
For national service: a document signed by official authority with start and end date of the service.
For clinical training, an extension can be granted corresponding to the documented amount of clinical training received by the Principal Investigator (PI) after the award of the first eligible degree up to a maximum of 4 years (counting up until the call deadline). For applicants whose first eligible degree is a degree in medicine, clinical training can be accepted from the date of the completion of their medical degree. No extension will be accepted for serving as a house doctor or hospital doctor unless it is part of a clinical training programme. In case of part-time clinical training, the exact total training time will be accepted on a pro-rata basis to extend the eligibility window of the applicant.
Supporting documents: an official document signed by the employer (usually a hospital) certifying start and end date(s) of the individual training period(s). Any document should mention the type of training. If the training was conducted part-time, this should be stated. It is acceptable if the training happened over several periods and for different clinical specialties.
