FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

ERC Advanced Grants are intended to support the very best research to be conducted in EU Member States2 and Associated Countries3. Being highly competitive and awarded on the sole criterion of excellence, without restriction to particular areas of research4, the grants are aimed to promote substantial advances at the frontiers of knowledge, and to encourage new productive lines of enquiry and new methods and techniques, including unconventional approaches and investigations at the interface between established disciplines.
This funding scheme targets researchers who have already established themselves as being independent research leaders in their own right and who would like to pursue frontier research of their choice. The aim is to fund individual teams led by established, innovative and active advanced investigators - called Principal Investigators (PI) in the funding scheme - regardless of nationality, age or current location.
The maximum grant amount will be EUR 2 500 000 for a maximum period of 5 years. However, in exceptional cases an additional sum of up to EUR 1 000 000 funding can be made available.

Call Title: Call for proposals for ERC Advanced Investigators Grant
Call identifier: ERC-2012-AdG

Electronic proposal submission deadline for the Life Sciences Domain (Panels LS1 – LS9): 14 March 2012 17.00.00 (Brussels local time)

Union contribution: Based on the reimbursement of eligible costs the Union financial contribution shall correspond to 100% of the total eligible and approved direct costs, and a reimbursement of a flatrate of 20% of the total eligible direct costs5 towards indirect costs. The level of the grant represents a maximum overall figure – payments must be justified on the basis of the amounts actually disbursed for the project.

Minimum number of participants: At least one independent legal entity established in one of the Member States, or one of the associated countries (in the case of the participation of more than one legal entity the participants are not obliged to establish a consortium agreement).

Evaluation criteria: Excellence is the sole criterion of evaluation. It will be applied to the evaluation of both the Principal Investigator and the research project in conjunction. For the detailed elements applying to the two Sections of the proposal see section 5.7 of the work programme.

Evaluation procedure: The evaluation will be conducted by means of a structure of high level peer review panels7 as listed in Annex 1. The panels may be assisted by remote referees. See section 5.6 and Annex 9 of the work programme.

Grant starting date: Due to the ground-breaking nature of frontier research projects, it is expected that all projects start within 6 months from the award of the grant. ERC reserves the right to cancel a grant if the proposed start date goes beyond this limit.

Information on the modalities of the call and guidance to applicants on how to submit projects is available on:

http://erc.europa.eu
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/appmanager/participants/portal