ERC Starting Grant

There will be one ERC StG call per year in Horizon Europe every October.

What is an ERC Starting Grant?

For researchers of any nationality with over 2 and up to 7 years of experience since completion of PhD (or equivalent degree) and a scientific track record showing great promise. 

This eligibility window is caculated by counting backwards from January 1st of the respective call year. For example 2023: you count backwards from 1.1.2023 even if you send your proposal in October 2022.

The projects will normally run for 5 years with a maximum stipend of 1,5 million €. Your project should contain a significant element of risk while showing high gain.

PIs from outside of Europe that come to work here solely because they have received an ERC, can apply for up to 1.000.000 € start up funding. This is also possible if the project requires significant investment for an instrument, an infrastructure or has major experimental and field work costs, excluding personnel costs.

Please tell your adviser about any possible plans for this early, as special financial rules are in place.

We can also inform you about in-kind support from UiB (some can be faculty-specific).

Please note that in order to produce the mandatory host support letter from UiB, we need the statement regarding Horizon2020 proposals signed by the applicant and the head of department as early as possible.The proposal consists of two parts that have to be submitted together, plus online forms in the participant portal that need to be filled out.

Part B1 is evaluated by the chosen ERC expert panel and will contain a 5 page project synopsis written for a broader audience, a two-page CV, a two-page track record and a funding ID that shows all current projects and project applications (no page limit). Your references also have no page limit. We recommend to write the synopsis in a way that makes its main points understandable for the broad range of expertise in your panel.

Applicants that pass on to step 2 will be invited to an interview in Brussels. Your adviser can inform you about the different training possibilities we offer.

Part B2 consists of a 14 page project description including research methods written for experts in the field.

NB: From 2019 the Resources- part that should describe the nature and size of your team and how you intend to spend the funding granted to you is no longer part of B2, but has to be submitted through the online forms. Contact your adviser if you are unsure, what to do.

Please note that you are expected to assess ethical issues in the online forms. Please inform your adviser, so that we can help you to address the issues. Failure to do so can result in a temporary termination of funding from the ERC. We also recommend to look at the link for Open Access and Open Research Data.

You can look at already funded projects in the ERC database.

For inquiries about ERC Starting Grants, please contact Anja Hegen.