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ERC Starting Grants

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What are the ERC Starting Grants?

ERC Starting Grants (StG) support excellent PIs at the career stage at which they are starting their own independent research team or programme in any field of research. The applicant must demonstrate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of his/her scientific proposal. See more details in ERC-StG-2025 summary  .

Who can apply for the ERC Starting Grant?

Junior researchers of any nationality who intend to conduct their research in any EU member state (MS) or an associated country (AC) with 2–7 years of experience since completion of their Ph.D. (Ph.D. defended between 01 Jan 2018 and 31 Dec 2022); a scientific track record showing great promise and an excellent research proposal..

Why apply for the ERC Starting Grant?

  • It is a prestigious opportunity to establish and develop your own independent research laboratory and to undertake your breakthrough, high-risk research ideas.
  • You can get financial support up to 1.5 M € for 5 years, the grant can cover up to 100% of the total eligible costs.
  • Additional 1 M € can be available to cover (i) eligible “start-up” costs for PIs moving from elsewhere to the EU or to an Associated Country as a consequence of receiving the ERC grant; (ii) the purchase of major equipment; (iii) access to large facilities; (iv) other major experimental or field work costs.
  • You can do your research in any of the EU Member States (MS) or Associated Countries (AC).

When to apply for the ERC Starting Grant?

The nearest call deadline ERC-2025-StG is on Tue 15 Oct 2024 17:00 Brussels time (IOCB deadline is on Tue 8 Oct 2024).

  Please inform the Project Office about your intention.  
  Do not hesitate to contact us anytime for consulting, discussion or help.  

How to apply for the ERC Starting Grant?

  1. Find and read programme guidelines:
  2. Contact the Host Institution and negotiate institutional support with the IOCB Director. For official IOCB agreement with project submission, please complete form in the Electronic Project Proposal Approval system. Please, contact the Project Office.
  3. Create or use your account on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal and activate your access to the call
  4. Select one of the 28 panels which is the most relevant to the field of your research (see Panel members of previous calls).
  5. Create a draft proposal, fill in pre-registration data for the proposal. These details will be used by the ERCEA in order to plan the evaluation. You will not have access to this page again once it is completed. Be careful to choose the correct Participant Identification Code (PIC) number for your Host Institution.
  6. Edit contact details, fill in the name and e-mail of the PI and the Main Host Institution Contact person. Once you save the changes, an automatic invitation is sent to all contacts’ e-mail addresses. The invited persons can access your proposal after logging in to the EU Funding & Tenders Portal.
  7. Prepare the budget and justification using the IOCB budget template (available from projectoffice@uochb.cas.cz), making sure that it is concise but at the same time provides clear justification of projected expenses.
  8. Fill in your online Administrative form (Part A) at the EU Funding & Tenders Portal.
    • General information: Title, Panel choice, Keywords, Abstract, Declarations;
    • Administrative data: Host Institution, Department, Principal investigator, Contact Address;
    • Budget;
    • Resources and time commitment (detailed description of resources, max. 8000 characters, incl. spaces);
    • Ethics and security issues tables;
    • Call specific questions.
  9. Complete the ERC StG offline Research proposal B1 (use B1 template  ) and make a PDF of the final version. Visual figures, tables and graphs are highly recommended in the proposal. Part B1 will be evaluated in steps 1&2. Discuss your proposal with other scientists, the Project Office and the Czech national contact point.
    • Cover page;
    • Extended synopsis of the scientific proposal (max 5 pages);
    • Curriculum Vitae and Track Record (max 4 pages).
  10. Complete the ERC StG offline Research proposal B2 (use B2 template  , max 14 pages excluding references) and make a PDF of the final version. Visual figures, tables and graphs are highly recommended in the proposal. Part B2 will be evaluated in step 2. Discuss your proposal with other scientists, the Project Office and the Czech national contact point.
    • State-of-the-art and objectives;
    • Methodology;
    • Appendix: Current research grants and any on-going applications related to the proposal of the PI(Funding ID) – does not count towards page limits.
  11. Finalise your application at the EU Participant Portal.
    • Administrative form Part A (online on Participant Portal) (applicant & Project Office)
    • Research proposal Part B1 (uploaded in PDF, B1 template  ) (applicant)
    • Research proposal Part B2 (uploaded in PDF, B2 template  ) (applicant)
    • Letter of Commitment of the Host Institution (Project Office & Director)
    • Ph.D. certificate in English or another EU language, incl. confirmation from awarding institution declaring the date of PhD defence, if this is not stated on the certificate (applicant)
    • If applicable, documents supporting the request for eligibility extension, if required (applicant))
    • If applicable, other documentation needed on ethics and security issues, i.e. supporting documents related to ethics or security issues if relevant (Project Office & applicant)
  12. Validate your application. Once there is a consolidated version of the proposal, the “SUBMIT” button must be pressed. The system performs a limited automatic validation of the proposal. Any problems such as missing data, wrong file format or excessive file size will appear as a list of warnings and/or on the screen. You may submit your proposal with warnings (marked in yellow), but it is not possible to submit a proposal until all errors (marked in red) are corrected. Please note that the electronic checks by the submission system do not replace the formal eligibility review and do not confirm that the contents of these files respond to the requirements of the call.
  13. Submit your application before Tue 15 Oct 2024 17:00 CET (IOCB deadline is on Tue 8 Oct 2024). Within a few minutes of submission your proposal will be available for download with an e-receipt in the system. You will receive a confirmation e-mail with the summary data of the submitted proposal. You may continue to modify the proposal and submit revised versions overwriting the previous one right up until the call deadline.
  14. Pre-screen results (including evaluation reports for rejected candidates) will be announced by 5 May 2025, interview invitations will be sent out in Mar/April 2025. Be prepared to present your project to the ERC evaluation panel. The interview will be held remotely in Jun 2025.

Final evaluation results will be announced to applicants in Aug 2025.
The earliest grant start date is expected to be in 21 Dec 2025. Successful applicants are able to start their project within 6 months of receiving an invitation letter from the ERC.

European Research Council
For questions, please contact the relevant Call coordination team: erc-2025-stg-applicants@ec.europa.eu / ERC-ETHICS-REVIEW@ec.europa.eu / ERC-OPEN-ACCESS@ec.europa.eu

NCP: Technology Centre CAS, Lyudmyla Tysyachna: Tysyachna@tc.cz, ☎: 607 006 110


Other ERC Grants


IOCB

IOCB participation (4) in ERC Starting Grants

  • Paulo PAIOTTI – AtropShape: Catalytic Atroposelective Synthesis for Revealing Elusive Bioactive Conformations and Shapes (2024)
  • Hana MACÍČKOVÁ CAHOVÁ – StressRNaction: Non-canonical RNA caps – cellular reaction to environment and stress (2022-2027; ERC link">ERC link)
  • Tomáš SLANINA – SOLBATT: Storage of Electrons into Chemical Bonds: Towards Molecular Solar Electrical Batteries (2022-2027; ERC link)
  • Milan VRÁBEl – Smart Biologics: Developing New Tools in Glycobiology (2016-2021; ERC link)