Europa Excelencia — ERC Near-Miss Supplement
Connects research teams and institutions for Europa Excelencia ERC Near Miss Supplement in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and climate technology.
⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.
Europa Excelencia 2026 is a competitive national supplement call administered by Spain's Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) under MICIU, designed to fund research projects that received a positive scientific evaluation from the European Research Council (ERC) under Horizon Europe's Excellent Science pillar but were not ultimately awarded ERC funding due to the ERC's budgetary constraints. It targets projects evaluated under ERC Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, and Advanced Grants. The program's stated objective is to improve the effective success rate of Spanish participation in ERC calls by providing national-level funding for high-quality proposals that the ERC assessed as meritorious.
The total budget for the 2026 call is €2,500,000, allocated competitively. Per-project award amounts are not published in the call summary and will appear in the full resolution document. The application window opens June 4, 2026 and closes at 14:00 Spanish peninsular time on June 25, 2026. The call is managed under the State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2024–2027, specifically the subprogram for Generation of Scientific-Technical Knowledge and Experimental Development.
The hard eligibility gate is possession of a recent positive ERC evaluation result demonstrating scientific merit but no award due to budget constraints. Eligible host organisations include Spanish universities, public research organisations, and other research bodies registered in Spain; the individual researcher must be affiliated with a Spanish institution. For-profit companies are ineligible. Applications are submitted through the AEI portal at aei.gob.es. Applicants should be prepared to supply the official ERC evaluation document confirming the positive assessment and the budgetary exclusion reason as core supporting evidence. The €2.5 million total pool is modest relative to full ERC grants, so successful applicants should anticipate partial rather than full-equivalent funding.
National funding for research projects positively evaluated by the ERC (Starting, Consolidator, or Advanced Grants) but not awarded due to ERC budgetary constraints.
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