ER
European Research Council

ERC Advanced Grants 2025

Pays established research leaders up to EUR 2.5 million over five years to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk frontier research.

ClosedEuropean Research CouncilEU

Scientific excellence is the sole evaluation criterion for ERC Advanced Grants, judged jointly on the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of the research project and on the Principal Investigator's own intellectual capacity, creativity and commitment -- there's no separate scoring for impact or implementation the way other Horizon Europe grants use. The grant itself is paid as a singl…

This call is for Principal Investigators who are already established research leaders with a recognised track record, in any field of science, who want to pursue an ambitious, high-risk frontier-research project. Applicants must show the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their proposed research, and the host institution can be any public or private legal entity — including universities, research organisations or companies — based in an EU Member State or Associated Country.

CycleiHow often this grant runs - e.g. annually, on a rolling basis, or a one-off call.No fixed schedule
Next deadlineiThe next date applications are due. Rolling means you can apply any time.-
Decision timeiTypical time from the deadline to the funder's decision.-
Project durationiHow long the funded work is expected to run.-
Award typeiThe form of funding - grant, equity, loan, tax credit, etc.Grant
Match fundingiThe share of project costs you must cover yourself. 0% = fully funded.-
Funding pooliThe total budget available across all awards in this round.€682.5M

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ERC Advanced Grant

🇪🇺European Commission · European Union

Funds investigator-led frontier research across disciplines, enabling high-risk discovery with strong scientific autonomy.

BiotechAI+5
€2.5M
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ERC Starting Grant

🇪🇺European Commission · European Union

Funds early-career researchers building an independent research team and pursuing frontier research through an ERC Starting Grant hosted at a public or private research organisation.

BiotechAI+5
€1.5MOct'26
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Pillar III: Science comes to town 2029

🇪🇺European Commission · European Union

Funds a group of 3-6 cities to jointly run a year-long 'Science comes to town' public-engagement programme, including the EUCYS and EU TalentOn competitions.

€6MMar'27
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Tackling child poverty and ensuring disadvantaged children's access to Early Childhood Education and Care

🇪🇺European Commission · European Union

Pays research consortiums roughly €3-4 million to produce EU-specific evidence on the cost of child poverty and how to close gaps in disadvantaged children's access to early childhood education.

€3M – €4MSep'26
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Making Europe a global magnet for talent — attracting and retaining non-EU students, researchers and high-skilled workers

🇪🇺European Commission · European Union

Pays research consortiums roughly €3-3.3 million to study what draws and keeps non-EU students, researchers and high-skilled workers in Europe.

€3M – €3.3MSep'26
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Government in transition — how governments change the way they work and prepare the civil service for the future

🇪🇺European Commission · European Union

Pays research consortiums roughly €3.5-4 million to study how EU and Associated Country governments are reinventing internal operations and preparing their civil services for the future.

€3.5M – €4MSep'26