ERC PROOF OF CONCEPT GRANTS

The conditions specific to the ERC grants are described in the ERC Work Programme 2026 under the heading “Admissibility, Eligibility, and Resubmission Restrictions” and in the ERC Rules for Submission and Evaluation . An overview is provided below:

Eligible Principal Investigator:

The ERC Proof of Concept Grant 2026 call is open to Principal Investigators whose ERC main frontier research grant is ongoing, or Principal Investigators whose ERC main frontier research grant ends on or after 1 January 2025, subject to restrictions provided in Annex 3 of this ERC Work Programme 2026.

Resubmission Restriction: Principal Investigators may submit ONLY ONE proposal under this Work Programme Proof of Concept 2026 call. If an applicant also submits a proposal at the next cut-off date within the same year, only the first admissible and eligible proposal will be considered.

A Principal Investigator whose proposal was rejected on the grounds of a breach of research integrity in the calls for proposals under Work Programmes 2024 or 2025 may not submit a proposal to the ERC-2026-PoC call.

Synergy Grant Principal Investigators are eligible to apply to the Proof of Concept call only with the written consent of all Principal Investigators in the same Synergy Grant project. Principal Investigators in the same Synergy Grant project can submit one Proof of Concept application each under this Work Programme.

Eligible Host Institution:

The host institution (Applicant Legal Entity) must engage the Principal Investigator for at least the duration of the Proof of Concept project, as defined in the grant agreement, and must be established in a Member State or an Associated Country as a legal entity created under applicable national law (see also "Eligible countries' below).

Any type of legal entity, public or private, including a university, a research organisation, or an undertaking can host a Principal Investigator and their team.

To participate in ERC frontier research actions the Host Institution must be established either in an EU Member State or an Associated Country as a legal entity created under national law, or it may be an international European research organisation (such as the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), etc.), or any other entity created under EU law.

International organisations with headquarters in an EU Member State or Associated Country shall be deemed to be established in that Member State or Associated Country.

Where they bring added scientific value to the project, additional team members may be hosted by other legal entities, which may be established anywhere, including outside the European Union or Associated Countries, or international organisations, subject to restrictions provided in Annex 3 of the ERC Work Programme 2026.

Legal entities established outside the European Union or an Associated Country are eligible for funding in the following cases:

▪ their participation is deemed essential for carrying out the action,

▪ they host team members bringing added scientific value to the project,

provided that they are not excluded from participation or subject to restrictive measures set out in Annex 3.

Gender Equality Plan :To be eligible, legal entities from a Member State or Associated Country that are public bodies, research organisations, or higher education institutions (including private research organisations and private higher education institutions) must have a gender equality plan or an equivalent strategic document in place for the duration of the project. The gender equality plan or equivalent must fulfil the mandatory requirements listed in Annex 5 to this ERC Work Programme 2026.

The conditions specific to the ERC are described in the ERC Work Programme 2026. under the heading “Admissibility, Eligibility, and Resubmission Restrictions” and in Annex 3. An overview is provided below:

The ERC actions are open to researchers of any nationality who intend to conduct their research activity in any Member State or Associated Country. Principal Investigators may be of any age and nationality and may reside in any country in the world at the time of the application.

A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.

All proposals must be complete, readable, accessible, and be submitted before the relevant deadline. Applications to the ERC 2026 Proof of Concept Grant call will be evaluated and selected in two rounds, based on two specific cut-off dates. Incomplete proposals may be declared inadmissible (see below: “Proposal submission and description”).

The content of the proposal must relate to the objectives and to the grant type set out in the call, as defined in this Work Programme. If a proposal is considered not to relate to the objectives of the grant and/or call for proposals, it will be declared ineligible. Where there is a doubt on the admissibility or eligibility of a proposal, the evaluation may proceed pending a decision of the Responsible Authorising Officer following the opinion of the admissibility and eligibility review committee. If it becomes clear before, during, or after the evaluation phase, that one or more of the admissibility or eligibility criteria have not been met, the proposal will be declared inadmissible or ineligible and it will be rejected.

Submission restrictions: 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.

Proof of Concept Grants may run in parallel provided they comply with the eligibility conditions set out in the Work Programme under which they have been awarded.

Proposal submission and description:

An Information for Applicants guidance is published on the ERC website and on the EU Funding & tenders opportunities Portal: it describes in detail how the submission forms should be completed. A list of Frequently Asked Questions (Q&As) is also available below (see: 'Topic Q&As').

ATTENTION: use the new Part A and Part B forms specific to the ERC PoC Lump Sum Grant call 2026 under Horizon Europe - please download the latest version at the submission link below.

A complete PoC proposal is composed of:

• Administrative Part A form: is an electronic submission form, available at step 5 of the submission process, once the draft proposal is created through the submission link below.

(NB: To access the submission tool, you need first to register to the Funding & tender opportunities Participant Portal.)

• Proposal Part B form and annexes: download the two templates available from the submission link below (at step 5, after creation of draft proposal), fill in, upload in PDF format only and submit it via the submission tool.

- Part B (Proposal description): will provide detailed descriptions of the PoC project, its objectives, planning, execution, and required resources.

   It will comprise the following required elements:

     - The idea and justification of the breakthrough innovation potential: max. 3 pages

     - The approach and methodology to explore the innovation potential: max. 6 pages

     - The strategic lead and project management of the Principal Investigator: max. 1 page.

• Host Institution Binding Statement of Support Letter (NB: For Principal Investigators in a Synergy grant, only the host institution of the Principal Investigator applying to the PoC call must confirm its association with and its support to the project and the Principal Investigator.)

• If applicable, an Ethics review self-assessment (with documentation related to ethics or security issues) and Letters of support or intent from potential stakeholders can be uploaded (in PDF format only).

Proposal templates are provisional and will be available after entering the submission tool below.

To ensure fairness to all applicants a strict limit of ten pages (excluding the headers, Title of proposal, Abstract, references, and the risk mitigation table) will be applied to the length of proposals. Only the material that is presented within this limit will be evaluated (reviewers will only be asked to evaluate, and will be under no obligation to read beyond, the material presented within the page limit). The following parameters must be respected for the layout: A4 Page format, Times New Roman (or Arial or similar) Font type, at least 11 Font size, Single line spacing, 2 cm side margins, 1,5 cm top and bottom margins.

Complete proposals must be submitted electronically via the submission tool available through the Funding & Tenders Portal. Further detailed guidance in the 'IT HOW TO' wiki site.

Early registration and submission is strongly recommended and should be done as early as possible before the call deadline.

Financial capacity: Please refer to the ERC Rules of submission and evaluation under Horizon Europe section 4, Award Decision and Preparation of Grant Agreements.

Operational capacity: As indicated in the ERC Work Programme 2026, page 41 (footnote 79): Applicants that are subject to the administrative sanction of exclusion or are in one of the exclusion situations set out by the EU Financial Regulation are banned from receiving EU grants and can NOT participate. See articles 136 and 141 of the EU Financial Regulation, as well as important information on possible exclusion and registration of economic operators in the Commission’s Early Detection and Exclusion System (EDES) on the final page of this Work Programme.

Security: Please refer to the ERC Work Programme 2026, Annex 4.

Exclusion: Please refer to the ERC Work Programme 2026, page 73 : Applicants that are subject to the administrative sanctions of exclusion or are in one of the exclusion situations set out by the Financial Regulation are banned from receiving EU grants and can NOT participate.

Proof of Concept Grants are awarded in relation to an ERC-funded project under one of the main grants. The evaluation of admissible and eligible proposals will look into ideas stemming from ERC-funded projects and will select among them the most competitive for further development towards an innovation. The activities to be funded will draw substantially on the ERC-funded research under the main frontier research grant.

For ERC Proof of Concept grants, excellence is the sole criterion of evaluation. It will be applied in conjunction to the evaluation of both: (1) the breakthrough innovation potential, approach, and methodology of the project; (2) the strategic lead and project management of the Principal Investigator.

The detailed evaluation elements applying to the excellence of the project and the Principal Investigator are set out in the ERC Work Programme 2026.

Experts will evaluate independently each admissible and eligible proposal in a single-step process, and mark it as "very good", "good" or "fail" for each of the three evaluation elements: 1.a Breakthrough innovation potential; 1.b Approach and methodology of the project, and 1.c. the strategic lead and project management of the Principal Investigator.

In order to be considered for funding, proposals will have to be awarded a pass mark (“very good” or “good”) by a majority of experts on each of the evaluation elements. A proposal which fails one or more of the elements will not be ranked and will not be funded.

If there is not enough budget to fund all the proposals which pass all three evaluation elements, those proposals which pass all three evaluation elements will be ranked according to the marks which they received from experts sorted by the order in which the evaluation elements appear above. Proposals will be funded in order of this ranking.

If necessary, experts will meet as an evaluation panel in order to determine a priority order for proposals which have the same ranking.

A Seal of Excellence will be awarded to proposals that have received a pass mark in all three of the evaluation elements set out in this Work Programme, but cannot be funded due to lack of budget available to the call.

Indicative timeline for evaluation of the ERC-2026-PoC call are set out in the ERC Work Programme 2026, in Table 7: “Provisional Details of Additional Funding Actions”. The timetable is also available on our ERC Website Funding-Proof of Concept page (under "ongoing evaluation" and "upcoming calls").

Grant amount and duration of the grant agreement:

The financial contribution will be awarded as a lump sum of EUR 150 000 for a period of 18 months. Extensions of the duration of proof of concept projects may be granted when duly justified.

The indicative budget for the ERC-2026-PoC call is EUR 60 000 000.

is described in the ERC Work Programme 2026, under the heading “Grant size and Duration”.

See also: Multi & Mono Grant Agreement for Lump Sum Grants .