FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Yes, unlike in previous Synergy calls for proposals, at submission stage each Host Institution (not only the Corresponding Host Institution) shall provide a support letter to PI(s) hosted by them for at least the duration of the grant. The conditions offered by the Host Institutions, including the 'portability' of the grant, are the subject of a supplementary agreement between the Principal Investigator(s) and their respective Host Institution(s). More information about the ERC-2020-SyG call is available in the ERC Work Programme 2020 and Information for Applicants to the Synergy Grant 2020 Call.

For an ERC Synergy Grant (SyG), a minimum of two and a maximum of four Principal Investigators (PIs) can apply. More information about the ERC-2020-SyG call is available in the ERC Work Programme 2020.

This information will not be provided to the evaluators and it will not be evaluated. Please note that the absence of a Gender Equality Plan will not prevent the signature of the grant agreement for the ERC 2021 Calls.

For ERC calls under Horizon Europe, the information requested in Part A on the career stage of the PI will not be provided to the reviewers of your proposal and will not be part of the evaluation. This data is gathered for statistical purposes and used to evaluate the Horizon Europe Programme as a whole.

Only the extension circumstances listed in the ERC Work Programme 2021 are eligible.

For the ERC-2021-COG call, no specific extension due to COVID-19-related circumstances is listed among the eligible reasons for extension. However, even if COVID is not among the valid reasons for the eligibility extension, it might have led to a situation that could be the basis for granting such an extension (e.g. a documented (part-time) leave to take care of the children e.g. during the school closure, due to lock-down or a documented medical condition of the PI or a close family member due to COVID-19 together with the related leave taken).

According to the ERC Work Programme 2021: “A researcher participating as Principal Investigator in an ERC frontier research project may not submit a proposal for another ERC frontier research grant, unless the existing project ends no more than two years after the call deadline.” Therefore, you will only be eligible for the ERC-2021-COG call if your current project finishes before 20-04-2023.

Please note that in case at some point you request and are granted an extension to the current project, your application to the ERC-2021-COG call will become automatically ineligible if, with such extension, the project’s duration goes beyond the two years after the ERC-2021-COG call deadline.

As indicated in the ERC Work Programme 2021, for the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, the eligibility periods can be extended in case of specific and properly documented circumstances. In case of maternity, the 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 document).

According to the conditions of the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, for applicants holding a degree in medicine who have been awarded both a degree in medicine and a PhD, the date used for the calculation of the eligibility period (i.e. medical degree plus two years or PhD award date) is the date of the earliest degree that makes the applicant eligible. For more information please consult the ERC policy on PhD and equivalent doctoral degrees in the ERC Work Programme 2021 – Annex 2 and section 4.3 of the Information for Applicants document to the Starting and Consolidator Grant 2021 Calls.

For the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, 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:

• Take into account the dedicated working time to run the project when estimating personnel costs. They should describe the size and nature of the team, indicating, where appropriate, the key team members and their roles. The participation of team members engaged by other host institutions should be justified and in relation to the additional financial cost this may impose.
• Include a short technical description of any requested equipment, why they need it and how much they plan to use it for the project.
• Include a realistic estimation of the costs for Open Access to project outputs. Costs for providing immediate Open Access to publications (article processing charges/book processing charges) are eligible if they are incurred during the lifetime of the project.
• Specify the cost items covered by 'Other personnel costs' category as well as ‘Other additional direct costs' category if applicable.
• As regards ‘Internally invoiced goods and services’, costs for host institution invoices and invoices for other entities should be included under this heading e.g. access to large facilities, access to other services that are charged as unit costs.
• Specify the requested amount for additional funding if applicable (all items MUST be included in the overall budget table under the relevant individual columns) and they should justify the request.
• Specify if they will use third parties giving in-kind contributions to the action (if applicable).

More explanation can be found in the Information for Applicants document.

For the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, 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”).