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Reaching for the Stars: Funding Astronomy through Horizon Europe Pillar I

ERC Personal and Collaborative Grants

Edwin van Bloois, PhD (bloois@astro.rug.nl)

Kapteyn Astronomical Institute

ExGal-Twin 2ⁿᵈ Project Meeting

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Horizon Europe Pillar I

B€ 25.8

B€ 52.7

B€ 13.5

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What makes ERC special?

⭐Excellence

🌍Bottom-up

👤PI-driven

🚀Freedom

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ERC grant landscape (core personal grants)

PhD

Consolidator Grant

(7-12 years after PhD)

Starting Grant

(2-7 years after PhD)

Advanced Grant

(established leaders)

Starting Grant

Up to €1.5M

5 years

Consolidator Grant

Up to €2M

5 years

Advanced Grant

Up to €2.5M

5 years

eligibility windows can be extended (career breaks)

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Additional ERC funding instruments

ERC Plus (personal, new)

    • Visionary research (beyond the scope of standard ERC grants)
    • Up to €7M
    • 4-7 years

ERC Synergy (collaborative)

    • 2-4 PIs
    • Up to €10M
    • 6 years

Proof of concept

    • Up to €150k
    • For existing ERC grantees

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Personal ERC grants

🚀High-risk / high-gain

⭐Frontier research

👤Single PI

👥Build your own team

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ERC timeline

AdG 2026 🡪 27 August 2026

StG 2027 🡪 14 October 2026

CoG 2027 🡪 12 January 2027

SyG 2027 🡪 11 May 2027

AdG 2027 🡪 26 August 2027

Plus 2027 🡪 1 September 2026

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Recent ERC Updates (Work Programme 2027)

Key changes from the ERC Work Programme 2027:

  • Expanded eligibility windows
    • Starting Grants: 0–10 years after PhD
    • Consolidator Grants: 5–15 years after PhD
  • Tighter resubmission and submission rules
    • Only one ERC main grant proposal under evaluation at a time
  • Refined evaluation criteria
    • Stronger emphasis on ambition and advancing the frontier of knowledge
  • Additional funding for ERC Plus
    • Supported through the Choose Europe initiative
  • Provisional call calendar for 2027 published

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Time

Knowledge

What does the ERC fund?

ERC funds frontier research with the potential to create major leaps in knowledge

Incremental progress

ERC project

ERC breakthrough

New knowledge trajectory

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ERC proposal structure

📄 Part I �Extended synopsis + CV � ↓ �📑 Part II �Full scientific proposal

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How ERC proposals are evaluated

Principal Investigator

👤 Leadership

🧠 Creativity

📈 Track record

Research project

💡 Ground-breaking

🚀 High-risk

🔬 Frontier research

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Evaluation process

Main grants

(StG / CoG / AdG / Plus)

​

📄 Submission � ↓ �👥 Step 1

short proposal + CV� ↓ �📊 Step 2 🎤

full proposal + interview (remote) � ↓ �✅ Decision

Synergy Grants�

�📄 Submission � ↓ �👥 Step 1

short proposal + CV� ↓ �📊 Step 2

full proposal� ↓ �🎤 Step 3 �interview (Brussels) � ↓ �✅ Decision

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What ERC panels really look for

• “Excellent science” is not enough → the project must clearly change the field �• Proposals that look like a continuation of previous work tend to struggle �• Being too broad or generic is a weakness → clarity and differentiation are key �• Strong proposals balance ambition with a credible path forward

• Proposals must be accessible to a broad panel → overly technical narratives can be a weakness

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ERC panels

Panels by domain (PE / LS / SH)

�→ Astronomy: PE9 �(astronomy, cosmology, astrophysics)

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ERC success rates

👤 StG/CoG/AdG�👥 Synergy

⭐ ERC Plus new scheme �

~10–15%

~8–10% �~30 grants per year

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Kapteyn track record

  • Strong track record in ERC applications
  • Several successful ERC grants (StG / CoG / AdG)
  • ERC-funded research from galaxies to exoplanets �(early Milky Way, gas flows, planet-forming disks, lava worlds)

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Take-home messages

  • ERC enables ambitious, frontier research
  • Highly competitive — but transformative
  • If you have a bold idea — this is the place to pursue it