The ERC’s plan for 2024 adopted

Press release

10 July 2023

The ERC’s 2024 Work Programme has been today adopted by the European Commission. The plan includes new elements in the assessment of research proposals and candidates’ CVs, and in the evaluation process. It also introduces lump sum funding in Advanced Grants and makes changes in the structure of evaluation panels.

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Information about most of these changes have already been shared with the public (in December 2022, and March and April 2023) to allow the scientific community, including prospective applicants, to be prepared ahead of the publication of the individual grant competitions.

Main features of 2024 Work Programme

Research assessment: Scientific excellence remains the sole criterion of evaluation for frontier research grants, but the Work Programme introduces changes to the structure of the Curriculum Vitae and Track Record, as well as to the evaluation procedure, where greater emphasis is placed on the quality of the project.

Lump sums: Advanced Grants will be implemented as a pilot call using a lump sum contribution, while Starting, Consolidator, and Synergy Grants will continue to be offered under the actual cost model.
See Q&A on lump sums
Proof of Concept Grants: As of 2024, applications for these grants will be evaluated and selected in two instead of three rounds, based on two specific cut-off dates.
Starting, Consolidator, and Advanced Grants: a maximum of 44 proposals per panel will be assessed at step 2 of the evaluation. Moreover, a distinction in the scoring at step 1 will be made between proposals obtaining a score of A and invited to step 2 of the evaluation, and proposals obtaining a score of A but not ranked sufficiently high to be invited to step 2. The latter proposals won't be subject to resubmission restrictions.
A new evaluation panel (SH8) has been created in the Social Sciences and Humanities domain to restore the balance between the coverage of social sciences and humanities. In addition, some descriptors (LS3, LS5) have been changed to make the disciplinary coverage clearer to the applicants.
Public Engagement with Research Award: the ERC grantees with ongoing or recently completed projects will be able to enter the contest for the Public Engagement with Research Award.