FP7 - European Research Council (ERC)

The objective of the ERC is to reinforce the excellence, dynamism and creativity in European research.

The ERC supports "frontier research" projects in all scientific domains, including interdisciplinary, exploratory and high-risk/high-gain research,  following a bottom-up investigator-driven approach.

Three types of ERC grants are available, all of them targeting (potential) top-class researchers at different stages of their research career:

ERC Starting Grants
aiming to support "young" researchers (at least 2 and up to 7 years post-doc experience prior to publication date of the call) to create their own independant research group

ERC Consolidators grants
helping more advanced researchers (over 7 and up to 12 years post-doc experience prior to publication date of the call) to consolidate their research group

Advanced investigator grants
for yet established experiences/leading investigators.