Proyectos «Europa Excelencia»
Funds frontier research projects in Spain with positive European Research Council evaluations.
⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.
Proyectos Europa Excelencia 2026, administered by Spain's Agencia Estatal de Investigación under the Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica, Técnica y de Innovación 2024-2027, is a targeted programme designed to rescue high-quality frontier research proposals that were positively evaluated by the European Research Council but ultimately not funded due to ERC budget constraints. The programme covers ERC Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, and Advanced Grants — all within Horizon Europe Pillar 1 «Excellent Science». The 2026 budget is €2.5 million.
Eligibility is restricted to Spanish public or non-profit private research and knowledge-dissemination organisations with demonstrated capacity to carry out frontier R&D projects. For-profit entities are excluded. The PI must have received a positive ERC evaluation — meaning the proposal was assessed as eligible and scientifically excellent — but the project must have gone unfunded solely because of ERC budget limitations, not because of scientific deficiencies. Funded costs cover personnel, small equipment, materials, and other project-related expenses, matching the scope of the original ERC proposal. The 2026 submission window ran from 4 June to 25 June 2026 at 14:00 peninsular Spanish time. Grants are awarded through concurrencia competitiva as subvenciones.
For host institutions, this programme offers a direct pathway to secure national funding for ERC-quality research that narrowly missed European funding. The most competitive applications will be those where the ERC proposal scored at or near the funding threshold and where the Spanish host institution can credibly support the full execution of the project. AEI's stated goal is to raise Spain's effective success rate in Horizon Europe Pillar 1 by ensuring that positively evaluated Spanish research teams are not left without resources.
Funds frontier research projects in Spain whose ERC Starting, Consolidator, or Advanced Grant proposals were evaluated positively but went unfunded by the ERC due to budget constraints.
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