Seventh EU Framework Programme Ireland

Ideas / ERC

The IDEAS programme, run by the European Research Council (ERC), aims to fund bottom-up, frontiers scientific/scholarly projects across science, engineering, the humanities and social sciences. The IDEAS programme has a budget of €7.5 billion over the lifetime of FP7. Currently there are two calls per year:

1. ERC Starter Grant competition (aimed at young investigators targeting independence; grants up to €2 million over 5 years)
2. ERC Advanced Grant competition (aimed at well established independent investigators; grants up to €3.5 million over 5 years)

The main criterion for the ERC Grants is scientific excellence.

The programme aims to increase the cooperation between researchers and the generation of knowledge across Europe and to translate this knowledge into social and economic growth. A key role of the programme is to attract the best researchers to the European Union from both European and third countries. 

The programme stands out through its uniquely flexible approach to EU research; proposed research projects are judged solely on merit, as judged by a peer review independent of political priorities.

The ERC homepage is informative and succinct and therefore it is not proposed to replicate its content on this site.

Click here to access the European Research Council (ERC) homepage

The ERC provides:

• a Guide for Applicants
• an Electronic information service announcing the latest activities and developments
• a Research Enquiry Service with the most up to date information on the programme.

For more information on applying for these grants, please see the FAQs page.

To assist ERC applicants in Ireland, Peter Clifford (NCP, Lifesciences & Physical Sciences and Engineering) and Sorcha Carthy (NCP, Humanities and Social Sciences) run additional services such as information events (mock interview training and non-technical pre-reads may be provided in certain cases). Please contact them to learn more about these services (contact details on the right).

Graham Love, SFI, is the National Delegate to the ERC for the IDEAS programme.

Update for Advanced Grant 2010

• The ERC have released an updated Guide for Applicants to Advanced Grant 2010 (please see above for an updated version for Starter Grant)

Updates for Starter Grant 2011

• The budget for the ERC 2011- StG will be €661.4M. This is an increase of over 25% from ERC 2010 StG which was set at €528M.
• Evaluation panels will assess applicants taking into account the specific stage of the research career. Two streams have been developed by which the panel will use to consider applicants,
  • At least 2 yrs and no more than 7 yrs post Ph.D. Broadly defined as "Starters"
  • Over 7 yrs but no more than 12 yrs post Ph.D. Broadly defined as “Consolidators” Note extensions of these periods may be allowed (see section 3.8.2 of Work Programme 2010)