The European Research Council’s plans for 2022

The European Research Council (ERC) announced work programme for 2022 which includes €2.4 billion for 1,100 scientists and scholars in European Union and associated countries. It is ERC’s second work programme under Horizon Europe. The funding will be awarded in a series of grant competitions refereed by panels of internationally renowned researchers. It is intended to support projects that push the frontiers of human knowledge.

On the 14th of July, 2021 the work programme established by ERC Scientific Council for the coming year was adopted by the European Commission, therefore, thanks to this funding 8,000 jobs for post-doctoral fellow, PhD students and other research staff will be created in ERC grantees’ teams. 

Here are few highlights from the plan: 

• Synergy Grants – support a small group of two to four principal investigators to jointly address ambitious research problems that could not be addressed by the individual researchers and their teams working alone.
• Four Proof of Concept funding rounds will take place under this work programme
• Public engagement with Research Award. The awards will recognize three ERC grantees, with a prize of €10,000 each, in the three categories: “Involve” for citizen science, “Inspire” for public outreach, and “Influence” for media and policy. The competition is expected to open on 5 October 2021.
• Gender equality plans at host institutions. he institutions to host ERC grantees must have a gender equality plan or an equivalent strategic document in place at the time of the signing of the grant and for the duration of the project.

For the whole article, visit The European Research Council and to read the plan click HERE.