Have you already received an ERC grant for your frontier research project and now want to explore the commercial or societal potential of your work? The ERC Proof of Concept Grant could be for you.
Who can apply?
All Principal Investigators in one of the ERC frontier research main grants (Starting, Consolidator, Advanced or Synergy) are eligible to participate and apply for an ERC Proof of Concept Grant. Principal Investigators in an ongoing main grant, or Principal Investigators in a main grant that has ended after 1 January 2025, are eligible to apply.
The Principal Investigator must be able to demonstrate the relation between the idea to be taken to proof of concept and the ERC frontier research project (Starting, Consolidator, Advanced or Synergy) in question.
Restrictions
A Principal Investigator may submit only one application per call.A maximum of three Proof of Concept Grants may be awarded per main grant project, except for Synergy Grant, in which case a maximum of six Proof of Concept Grants may be awarded per ERC funded project.Synergy Grant Principal Investigators are eligible to apply only with the written consent of all Principal Investigators in the same Synergy Grant project.
UK’s participation in Horizon Europe
What proposals are eligible?
Criteria
The ERC Proof of Concept funding is made available only to those who already have an ERC award to establish proof of concept of an idea that was generated in the course of their ERC-funded projects.Frontier research often generates radically new ideas that drive innovation and business inventiveness and tackle societal challenges. The ERC PoC Grants aim at facilitating exploration of the commercial and social innovation potential of ERC funded research and are therefore available only to PIs whose proposals draw substantially on their ERC funded research.Proof of Concept Grants aim at maximising the value of the excellent research that the ERC funds, by funding further work (i.e. activities which were not scheduled to be funded by the original ERC frontier research grant) to verify the innovation potential of ideas arising from ERC funded projects.The objective is to enable ERC-funded ideas to progress on the path from ground-breaking research towards innovation.Proof of Concept Grant would help among others:
- testing, experimenting, demonstrating and validating the idea;
- conducting research required to carry out the above activities and to address the weaknesses uncovered by them;
- establishing viability, technical issues and overall direction;
- clarifying IPR protection or knowledge transfer strategy;
- involving industrial partners, societal or cultural organisations, policymakers or any other potential stakeholder supporting the translation of research results into innovation;
- assessing potential “end users” of the expected innovation.
Host Institution
The Host Institution must engage the Principal Investigator for at least the duration of the Proof of Concept project.
The Host Institution must either be established in an EU Member State or associated country (AC) as a legal entity created under national law, or it may be an International European Interest Organisation (such as CERN, EMBL, etc.), the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) or any other entity created under EU law.
International organisations with headquarters in an EU Member State or AC will be deemed to be established in this Member State or AC. Any type of legal entity, public or private, including universities, research organisations and undertakings can host PIs and their teams. The ERC welcomes applications from PIs hosted by private for-profit research centres, including industrial laboratories.
The PI can submit the PoC proposal with a different HI than the one where the ERC main frontier research grant is currently (or was) implemented, provided that this other HI complies with the eligibility criteria described in the Work programme.
How much?
Work Programme 2026 will continue to award Proof of Concept Grants on the basis of a lump sum of EUR 150,000 for a period of 18 months.
How to apply?
Applications can be submitted at any time from the opening date of the chosen call until the specified submission deadline. As of 2024, applications to the Proof of Concept Grant will be evaluated and selected in two instead of three rounds, based on two specific cut-off dates.”
For an ERC Proof of Concept grant application to be complete, it needs to include the administrative form, the proposal (part B) and the supplementary documents (Host Institution binding statement of support and if applicable ethics self-assessment, additional ethics documentation and letters of support or intent from the relevant stakeholders). The completed proposal should be submitted by the specified submission deadline of the chosen call.Calls are published on this page, the EU Funding & Tenders Portal and in the Official Journal of the European Union.
