Frequently asked questions

According to the conditions of the ERC Consolidator Grant 2022 (ERC-2022-COG) call, as long as no PhD document or equivalent is uploaded in 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 and the PhD certificate is missing, the ERCEA may contact the PI and ask for a clarification and the missing document. For more information on admissibility and eligibility criteria, see the related section in the ERC Work Programme 2022.

Prospective applicants to the 2023 Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls should note that the ERC is aiming to change the PhD reference date for the calculation of the eligibility period from the date of the actual award according to the national rules of the country where the degree was awarded to the date of the successful PhD defence. Whenever the PhD certificate does not show the PhD defence date, applicants should provide a written confirmation from the awarding institution stating the said date. This change will bring both clarity to the prospective candidates and significant simplification to the eligibility process.

This announcement was done in order for the PIs to assess their eligibility early enough so that they can consider applying for calls in Work Programme 2022. Hence, the 'transition phase' are the 2022 calls where the 'old' rule is still applicable.

Any further update we may have on this aspect will be published on our website. The new rule will be enforced, as written in the future Work Programme 2023. More information will be provided in the 2023 'Information for Applicants' document.

Only the extension circumstances listed in the ERC Work Programme 2022 are eligible. For the ERC-2022-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 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 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 2022, applicants may mention in their research proposal (Curriculum Vitae) 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 the Part B1 template, in an objective manner (see also an ERC announcement).

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.

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.

According to the ERC Work Programme 2022, in order to be eligible to apply to the ERC Starting Grant 2022 Call, a Principal Investigator must have been awarded a PhD or equivalent doctoral degree. It is recognised that there are some other doctoral titles that enjoy the same status and represent variants of the PhD in certain fields. All of them have similar content requirements. First professional degrees will not be considered in themselves as PhD-equivalent, even if recipients carry the title "Doctor". For more information, please consult Annex 2 ‘ERC policy on PhD and equivalent doctoral degrees’ in the ERC Work Programme 2022 - and section 4.3 of the Information for Applicants document to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022.

According to the ERC Work Programme 2022, for 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 Starting 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 2022 and section 4.3 of the document Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022.

Yes, this is possible as long as the Principal Investigator (PI), at the time of submission, 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 50% of his/her 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 in the Funding & Tenders Portal.

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.

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 conditions of the ERC Starting Grant 2022 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 2022 – Annex 2 and section 4.3 of the document Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022.

No, according to the conditions of the ERC Starting Grant 2022 call, the Principal Investigator must have been awarded a PhD or equivalent doctoral degree to be eligible. First-professional degrees will not be considered in themselves 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 2022, Annex 2 and section 4.3 of the document Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022.

According to the conditions of the ERC Starting Grant 2022 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 Principal Investigator (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 to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022.

For the ERC Starting Grant 2022, 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 2022 (section 'Evaluation procedure and criteria').

For the ERC Starting Grant 2022, the applicant must choose and indicate the most relevant ERC Panel (‘primary evaluation panel’) for the evaluation of the proposed research and indicate one or more ERC key words representing the research fields involved. Applicants may also indicate a second relevant panel. They 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 to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022. The primary panel structure is also indicated in Annex 1 to the ERC Work Programme 2022.

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.

Further explanations can be found in the documents Information for Applicants to the Starting and Consolidator Grant Calls 2022 and ERC Rules of submission and evaluation under Horizon Europe.