Frequently asked questions

Yes, every Principal Investigator (PI) involved in a Synergy Grant (SyG) proposal must be engaged and hosted by a Host Institution. In general, the Host Institutions should be established in one of the EU Member States or Associated Countries for at least the full duration of the project. In the 2022 SyG call, with the exception of the corresponding Host Institution, it is possible to have one PI applying with a Host Institution outside of the EU or Associated Countries. The Principal Investigators (PIs) must also spend 50% of their time in Europe, except the PI who will be hosted in an institution outside of the EU or Associated Countries. Other institutions outside Europe may be involved, as additional beneficiaries to the grant, and may even receive funding provided that their participation is deemed essential for carrying out the action. In addition, their presence must be well justified in the proposal. More information about the ERC-2022-SyG call is available in the ERC Work Programme 2022.

As a Research and Innovation Action, the interdisciplinary topic SC1-DTH-03-2018 should include testing and validation on a small-scale prototype. As it is clearly stated in the topic text, the validation should take place in real settings (at workplaces and at home as required).

It should, however, also allow for appropriate user involvement, even if the number of users may be small, in order to base the project's proof of concept on real user needs and to ensure end-user acceptance.

In addition, proposals may contain closely connected but limited demonstration or pilot activities.

Regarding the validation of effectiveness and usefulness of the solution, the proposal should include key performance indicators and appropriate metrics to measure the progress towards the expected impact, if successful.

In Horizon Europe, all interactions with ERCEA will take place online via the Funding & Tenders Portal (F&T Portal), under "My Area" (after EU Login). The handling of documents will be fully electronic as there is no need any more to exchange any paper document. The grants for the successful proposals submitted to the ERC 2023 calls (ERC-2023-STG, ERC-2023-COG, ERC-2023-ADG, ERC-2023-SYG, ERC-2023-PoC) will be prepared and then signed electronically. Requests of amendments will be prepared, submitted and either accepted or rejected electronically. All reports will have to be submitted for review via the F&T Portal. According to the various phases of the project lifecycle, the correct actors (HIs and/or PIs) will be informed via email that certain tasks must be performed in the F&T Portal. In case of the Synergy grants, the corresponding HI and PI are the main contacts with the Agency. Notwithstanding the above and in an effort to keep on offering a high level service, we strongly encourage both the HIs and the PIs to contact the respective Agency staff for discussion in an informal way about any changes in their respective action. This is of utmost importance in order to avoid cancellation of documents or requests that are incomplete or incorrect. The name and surname of the ERC officer responsible for the PI's grant can be found in the F&T Portal. The officer can be easily contacted via the messaging tool embedded in the F&T Portal, allowing the PI (corresponding PI for the Synergy grants) to communicate directly with the officer without having to use emails. Furthermore, the ERCEA has set up a helpdesk to provide Principal Investigators with assistance and guidance throughout the lifetime of the project. The helpdesk can be contacted by email at ERC-C2-PI-HELPDESK@ec.europa.eu.

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.

During each step of the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) evaluation, the two main elements of the proposal (Principal Investigator [PI] and research project) will be evaluated and rated. At the end of each evaluation step, the proposals will be ranked by the panels on the basis of the panels' overall appreciation of their strengths and weaknesses. At the end of Step 1 of the evaluation, on the basis of the assessment of Part B1, the proposal will receive one of the following scores:

• A, is of sufficient quality to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation;
• B, is of high quality but not sufficient to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation;
• or C, is not of sufficient quality to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation.

At the end of Step 2 of the evaluation, on the basis of the assessment of the full research proposal, applicants will be informed of one of the following scores for their proposal either:

• A, fully meets the ERC's excellence criterion and is recommended for funding if sufficient funds are available;
• or B, meets some but not all elements of the ERC's excellence criterion and will not be funded.

Once the evaluation of their proposal has been completed, applicants to all calls will receive an evaluation report, which will include the final panel score and ranking range, the panel comment and the assessment of the evaluation elements by each individual independent external expert. More information on the results of the peer review evaluation can be found in the ERC Rules of submission and evaluation under Horizon Europe (section 3.8 'Feedback to applicants').

For the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) call, the CVs of individual team members should not be included. Although it is not mandatory to provide the names of individual team members, the proposal should describe the composition and nature of the team that will carry out the proposed activities. In case the PI decides to put any names in the proposal, they should be aware of the obligation to obtain a written consent of all participants on their participation and the content of the proposal, as well as of any researcher mentioned in the proposal as participating in the project, should the proposal be funded before the submission of the proposal. Further explanations can be found in the documents Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant calls 2023 and ERC Rules of submission and evaluation under Horizon Europe.

For the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) call, Step 1 of the peer review evaluation process is based only on Part B1 (the Extended Synopsis, the Principal Investigator's CV and the track record) and peer reviewers do not have access to the full research proposal. At Step 2, the peer reviewers base their assessment on the complete versions of the retained proposals – Part B1, Part B2 and section 3 – Budget and time commitment from section 5 – Other questions (included in the online submission form). Please note that experts do not have access to any supporting documentation during the evaluation. For more information on the evaluation process, please refer to the ERC Work Programme 2023 (section 'Evaluation procedure and criteria').

For the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) call, the budget table and the justification of the resources will not count towards the page limit of Part B2. They form a 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 2023 document for further information.

For the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) 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 applicant should NOT include any description of resources or budget table in Part B2.

For the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) call, the budget table in form Part A (Section 3 – Budget) is subdivided in personnel costs, travel and subsistence, equipment, consumables, publications (including Open Access), other additional direct costs, internally invoiced goods and services, and any envisaged subcontracting costs.Applicants should take into account the dedicated working time to run the project when estimating personnel costs and describe in the text box below the budget table the size and nature of the team, indicating 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 costs this may impose. They should include a short technical description of any requested equipment, why they need it and how much they plan to use it for the project. Costs for publishing in full Open Access venues (such as full open access journals, books, or platforms) and other publishing fees (article processing charges/book processing charges) are eligible if they are incurred during the lifetime of the project. The cost items covered by ‘Other personnel costs’ category as well as ‘Other additional direct costs’ category should be specified if applicable. Costs under ‘Internally invoiced goods and services’, should include costs for host institution invoices. The requested amount for additional funding, if applicable, should be specified (all items MUST be included in the budget table under the relevant individual columns) and the request justified.

For the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) 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 table will provide automatically one budget line per beneficiary.

The budget section contains the proposal budget including the ‘total eligible project costs’ and the ‘Requested EU contribution’ for the project. 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’, the applicant should specify in the Resources section what exactly is funded from other sources. All the values of the budget table should be carefully checked. 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 evaluation panels assess the estimated costs carefully; unjustified budgets will be consequently reduced.

More explanations can be found in the document Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant calls 2023.

For the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) call, 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 2023 for an example of the Proposal Budget Report. It shows how experts will see the information entered in relevant sections of Part A.

Yes, this is possible as long as the Principal Investigator (PI), at the time of submission to the ERC-2023-STG call, is supported by one organisation acting as Host Institution (applicant legal entity) based in an EU Member State or an Associated Country. Through the Host Institution support letter, this organisation is committing itself: to host and engage the Principal Investigator for the whole duration of the action, to ensure that the project will be performed under the guidance of the Principal Investigator who is expected to devote minimum 50% of their working time to the ERC funded project. Specific circumstances, where the minimum time requirement of the call (50%) results from the sum of more than one employment contract of the PI with different organisations, may be accommodated in case the proposal is selected for funding. Other organisation(s) hosting team members should be referred to as (an) additional partner(s) in the proposal and their details should be given in the administrative proposal submission form on the Funding & Tenders Portal.

To be eligible for calls with deadlines in 2022 and 2023, 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 for the duration of the project. This information will not be provided to the reviewers 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)’s 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 proposal. In case the proposal is selected for funding, the HI must have a GEP or an equivalent strategic document in place at granting stage. The GEP or equivalent must fulfil the mandatory requirements listed in Annex 5 of the ERC Work Programme 2023 and will be necessary before the signature of the grant agreement. See guidelines here.

According to the conditions of the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) call, if no PhD document or equivalent is uploaded in the submission tool of the Funding & Tenders Portal, it will not be possible to validate/submit the proposal. A warning message will inform the applicant of the missing document. If another document is uploaded instead of the PhD certificate/document confirming the date of successful PhD defence, the ERCEA may contact the PI and ask for a clarification and the missing PhD document. For more information on admissibility and eligibility criteria, see the related section in the ERC Work Programme 2023.

No, according to the conditions of the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) call, the Principal Investigator must have successfully defended a PhD or equivalent doctoral degree to be eligible. First-professional degrees will not be considered as PhD-equivalent, even if recipients carry the title "Doctor". For more information, please consult the ERC policy on PhD and equivalent doctoral degrees in the ERC Work Programme 2023, Annex 2 and section 4.3 of the document Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant calls 2023.

Only the extension circumstances listed in the ERC Work Programme 2023 will be considered. For the ERC-2023-STG 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 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 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). Please note that in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak, according to the ERC Work Programme 2023, applicants may mention in their research proposal (CV) any specific situation caused by the pandemic that had a negative impact on their CV or track record. The applicants will be able to declare any delays or gaps in scientific productivity related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Part B1 in an objective manner (see also section Completing an Application of the Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant calls 2023).

For clinical training, an extension can be granted corresponding to the documented amount of time of clinical training received by the Principal Investigator (PI) after the reference date of the first eligible degree and before the call deadline, 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, as well as the other eligibility extension circumstances, can be accepted considered 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. Applicants to the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) call can find more information, including the supporting document(s) that need to be submitted together with the proposal, in the Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant calls 2023 document, Section 4.4 Supporting Documents for the PhD Reference Date and Extension Requests.

As indicated in the ERC Work Programme 2023, the eligibility period can be extended in case of specific and properly documented circumstances. In case of maternity, the Principal Investigators (PIs) to the ERC Starting Grant 2023 (ERC-2023-STG) call may request 18 months extension for each child born before or after the date of the successful defence of their PhD degree. If the applicant can document a longer total maternity leave, the eligibility period will be extended by the documented amount of actual leave(s) taken for all children before 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, the same would be applied 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 proposal submit all relevant supporting documentation (see more details on the supporting documents in the Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant calls 2023).