Frequently asked questions

To be eligible for calls with deadlines in 2022, legal entities from an EU Member State (MS) or Associated Country (AC) must have a gender equality plan (GEP) or an equivalent strategic document in place. This information will not be provided to the evaluators and it will not be evaluated.

In the Part A online submission form, there is a ‘yes/no’ tick box question that the Host Institution (HI) contact person must fill in. Only public bodies, higher education institutions (including private research organisations and private higher education institutions) must answer this question. This answer will not affect the evaluation of the project. In case the proposal is selected for funding, the HI must have a GEP or an equivalent strategic document in place for the duration of the project. The GEP or equivalent must fulfil the mandatory requirements listed in Annex 5 of the ERC Work Programme 2022 and will be necessary before the signature of the grant agreement.

According to the conditions applied to the ERC frontier research Grants 2022, there are four main restrictions to be considered for Principal Investigators in this regard:

• A researcher may participate as Principal Investigator [Including all Principal Investigators supported under the Synergy Grant] in only one main frontier research grant at a time. A new main frontier research grant project can only start after the duration of the project fixed in a previous grant agreement for one of the main frontier research grant has ended.
• A researcher participating as Principal Investigator in one of the main frontier research grant may not submit another proposal for a main ERC grant, unless the existing project ends no more than two years after the call deadline. [NB According to the duration of the project fixed in a previous grant agreement of the main frontier research grant]
• A PI who is a serving Panel Member for a 2022 ERC call or who served as a Panel Member for a 2020 ERC call may not apply to a 2022 ERC call for the same type of grant. [NB: As an exception to this rule, Principal Investigators who are not serving as Synergy Grant 2022 panel members can apply to the 2022 Synergy Grant call even if they served as Panel Members for the 2019 or 2020 Synergy Grant calls. The members of the ERC panels alternate to allow panel members to apply to the ERC calls in alternate years]
• A Principal Investigator may submit proposals to different main frontier research grant calls published under the same Work Programme, but only the first eligible proposal will be evaluated.

These restrictions are specified in the ERC Work Programme 2022. The Scientific Council may decide in the light of experience that different or comparable restrictions will apply in subsequent years.

As indicated in the ERC Work Programme 2022, 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 to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022).

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 providing in-kind contributions to the action (if applicable).

More explanations can be found in the document Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022.

The budget table and description of resources (as well as time commitment of the PI to the project) will be extracted from the online submission form Part A (Section 3 – Budget; section 5 - Other questions) and made available to the experts evaluating the proposal. Please see Annex 4.6 of the document Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022 for an example of the Proposal Budget Report. It shows how experts will see the information entered in relevant sections of Part A.

The budget table and the justification of the resources will not count towards the page limit of Part B2 anymore. Since the 2021 calls, they form part of the section 'Resources and Time Commitment' with a page limit of 2 pages.

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 to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022 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 2022 call, only the eligible career breaks set in the ERC Work Programme 2022 can be considered for the extension of the eligibility window: 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. Information on the circumstances mentioned above and the supporting documents that need to be submitted together with the proposal can be found in the Information for applicants 2022 document.

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.

According to the ERC Work Programme 2022, the date of the first PhD considered for the calculation of the eligibility period shall be the date of the actual award according to the national rules in the country where the degree was awarded. This rule is explained further in the document Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022 (section 1.2 Admissibility and eligibility/Principal Investigator):

"The reference date towards the calculation of the eligibility period should be the date of the actual award according to the national rules in the country where the degree was awarded (generally, the date of successful defence/viva). The issue date of the PhD certificate is not to be confused with the award date of the PhD."

In case of applicants having been awarded several PhDs, the reference date is the award date of the first PhD. In case of degrees in medicine considered equivalent to a PhD, the certified date of the medical degree completion plus two years is the time reference for calculation of the eligibility time-window. For more information, see section 'Admissibility and eligibility criteria' of the ERC Work Programme 2022 and its Annex 2.

Please check our ERC website if you are Prospective applicants to the 2023 Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls.

The Principal Investigator (PI) should be engaged by the Host Institution of the ERC PoC Grant during its entire duration. There is no minimum commitment percentage of the working time required from the PI applying for the ERC-2022-PoC calls. However, in the grant agreement, PIs must enter a minimum of their working time, as they are responsible for managing the ERC PoC project. It is essential that the cumulative percentage commitment that the PI spends on the ERC PoC action and on the main ERC StG/CoG/AdG/SyG Grant (if still ongoing) does not exceed 100%. For more information please refer to the ERC 2022 Work Programme.

Under the ERC 2022 Proof of Concept (ERC-2022-PoC1 and ERC-2022-PoC2) calls, a maximum of three Proof of Concept Grants may be awarded per main grant project, except for Synergy Grant, in which case a maximum of six Proof of Concept Grants may be awarded per ERC funded project. PoC projects can run in parallel.

More information on the submission and evaluation procedures can be found in the ERC 2022 Work Programme, in the section relevant to the call, as well as in the guide Information for Applicants to the Proof of Concept Grant 2022 Calls.

According to the ERC 2022 Work programme, funding for the Proof of Concept (PoC) Grant will be awarded through two calls for proposals, ERC-2022-PoC1 and ERC-2022-PoC2.

Applications can be submitted at any time from the opening date of the chosen call until its final deadline. Under call ERC-2022-PoC1, applications will be evaluated and selected in a single round (single deadline / cut-off date). Under call ERC-2022-PoC2, applications will be evaluated and selected in three rounds, based on three specific cut-off dates. A Principal Investigator may submit only one eligible application per call (i.e. one proposal to the first call: ERC-2022-PoC1 call, and/or one proposal to the second call: ERC-2022-PoC2 call). If further submissions are made at different cut-off dates of the second call: ERC-2022-PoC2, only the first admissible and eligible proposal will be considered (inadmissible, ineligible or withdrawn applications do not count against this limit).Therefore, exceptionally under the ERC 2022 Work programme, an applicant may submit up to two proposals (one to ERC-2022-PoC1 call and one to ERC-2022-PoC2 call).

There are no shares or quotas by domain or discipline for the ERC Proof of Concept (ERC-2022-PoC1 and ERC-2022-PoC2) 2022 calls. No domain or field is excluded and the possibility for innovation arising from the social sciences and humanities to apply for a PoC funding is fully recognised.

As stated in the ERC 2022 Work Programme: “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, time sheets are not needed for the contractual obligations of an ERC 2022 Proof of Concept (ERC-2022-PoC1 and ERC-2022-PoC2) project. For more information, please refer to the Multi & Mono Model Grant Agreement for Lump Sum Grants.

For ERC Proof of Concept (ERC-2022-PoC1 and ERC-2022-PoC2) Lump Sum actions, beneficiaries do not need to keep records on their actual costs for the purpose of triggering the payment of the lump-sum. 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 & Mono Model Grant Agreement for Lump Sum Grants.

Yes, under ERC 2022 Proof of Concept (ERC-2022-PoC1 and ERC-2022-PoC2) calls, Synergy Grant Principal Investigators (PI) from an ERC Synergy (SyG) funded project are eligible to apply to an ERC PoC proposal as Principal Investigator (PI), but only with the written consent of all Principal Investigators in the same Synergy Grant project.

More information on the submission and evaluation procedures can be found in the ERC 2022 Work Programme, in the section relevant to the call, as well as in the Information for Applicants to the Proof of Concept Grant 2022 Calls.

The Proof of Concept grant is evaluated based on the sole criterion of excellence, which comprises three evaluation elements. Reviewers will evaluate independently each eligible proposal submitted under the ERC PoC 2022 Proof of Concept (ERC-2022-PoC1 and ERC-2022-PoC2) calls, and mark it as "very good", "good" or "fail" for each of the three evaluation elements. 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 evaluation elements, the ranking range and the assessment of the evaluation elements by each external independent expert.

More information on the evaluation procedure can be found in the ERC 2022 Work Programme, in the section relevant to the calls.

For the ERC Proof of Concept (ERC-2022-PoC1 and ERC-2022-PoC2) calls, 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 form – section 1b.iii. Plan of the proof of concept – Description of the Action – Description of the team. More information on the submission and evaluation procedures can be found in the ERC 2022 Work Programme, in the section relevant to the call, as well as in the Information for Applicants to the Proof of Concept Grant 2022 Calls.

For the ERC Proof of Concept (ERC-2022-PoC1 and ERC-2022-PoC2) 2022 calls, applicants submit the whole proposal that is evaluated in a single step by the independent external experts. The experts will review the Part B proposal and annexes with letters of support or intent. For more information on the evaluation process, please refer to ERC 2022 Work Programme.