ERC grants explained: Starting, Consolidator, Advanced, Synergy and Proof of Concept

The five schemes

Additional funding on top of the main ceiling can be requested for eligible start-up costs, major equipment, access to large facilities and relocation to the EU or an associated country. Check the ceilings in the work programme for the call year you are applying to — they change.

• Starting Grant — for researchers early after the PhD, building their first independent team. Up to €1.5 million for five years.
• Consolidator Grant — for researchers consolidating an independent team, further from the PhD. Up to €2 million for five years.
• Advanced Grant — for established leaders with a significant track record over the last decade. Up to €2.5 million for five years.
• Synergy Grant — for two to four principal investigators tackling a problem none of them could address alone. Larger budget, longer horizon.
• Proof of Concept — small top-up grants, open only to current or recent ERC grant holders, to explore the commercial or societal potential of results already produced.

Eligibility is a date, not a judgement

For Starting and Consolidator, eligibility is measured from the certified date of your successful PhD defence to 1 January of the call year. The window can be extended for documented reasons such as parental leave, long-term illness, national service or clinical training.

Get the date and the extension evidence right before you write a single page. An excellent proposal from an ineligible applicant is rejected without evaluation.

B1 and B2: two documents, two jobs

• B1 — the extended synopsis plus your CV and track record. This is what the panel reads at step one, and it is where most applications are lost.
• B2 — the full scientific proposal, read only if you pass step one. It has to survive specialist remote referees.
• Both are submitted at the same time, so B2 cannot be written later. Plan for two complete documents on the deadline.

How evaluation works

ERC uses a single criterion: excellence. It is applied to the principal investigator and to the project, and judged on ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility.

Step one is a panel reading of B1. Step two adds remote specialist reviews of B2 and, for Starting, Consolidator and Advanced, an interview with the panel. Panels are broad, so the first readers of your synopsis are rarely specialists in your exact subfield.

Choosing a panel

The panel choice determines who reads you. Look at the panel descriptors and at recently funded projects in each candidate panel, not just at the panel title. A proposal written for a panel that does not recognise the question loses points that have nothing to do with the science.

Common reasons strong scientists fail

• The synopsis reads as a continuation of previous work rather than a step change.
• The ambition is stated but never demonstrated against the current state of the art.
• Risk is ignored, so feasibility looks unexamined — mitigation strengthens a proposal, it does not weaken it.
• The track record section lists outputs without explaining independence and leadership.
• The writing assumes the reader is a specialist. At step one, they are not.