European Research Council (ERC) Programme

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The main activity of the European Research Council is to provide adequate funding opportunities to support researchers of excellence (defined in this area as Principal Investigators - PI) to conduct pioneering and high-risk research activities. ERC grants are also characterized by their bottom-up nature, i.e. the PI can participate with freely chosen topics without the need to adapt to predefined topics. Multi- and inter-disciplinary proposals that cross the boundaries between the different research areas are encouraged, as well as pioneering proposals that address new and emerging research areas by introducing unconventional and innovative approaches.

No co-financing contributions are required under the ERC programme and the selected proposals are funded at 100% of the eligible expenses.

Given the nature of the programme and the impressive number of very high quality proposals that are presented every year, in order to maintain the quality and integrity of the evaluation process, the presentation of proposals will have to abide by a series of restrictions on submission. In the event of a negative evaluation of the proposal, applicants may be precluded from submitting proposals for a time limit of one or two years. Each annual work programme defines these restrictive measures in detail.

Starting from 2017, the University of Florence has implemented an internal Task Force to support researchers in the submission of proposals to the ERC.

Program website