Erc Proof Of Concept Grants1

 1. Admissibility and Eligibility Conditions: The conditions specific to ERC grants are described in the ERC Work Programme 2022 under the heading 'Admissibility and eligibility criteria' and in the ERC Rules of Submission. An overview is provided below:

Admissible and eligible proposals:
All proposals must be complete, readable, accessible and be submitted before the relevant deadline. Incomplete proposals may be declared inadmissible (see ERC Proof of Concept Grant proposal submission and description below).
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. A proposal will only be deemed ineligible on grounds of ‘scope’ in clear-cut cases.
Where there is a doubt on the admissibility or eligibility of a proposal, the evaluation may proceed pending a decision following an 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. 
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.

Eligible Principal Investigator:
All Principal Investigators in one of the main grants are eligible to participate and apply for an ERC Proof of Concept Grant. Principal Investigators in a main grant that has ended less than 12 months before 1 January 2021 are eligible to apply only to call ERC-2022-PoC1. Principal Investigators in a main grant that is ongoing or has ended less than 12 months before 1 January 2022 are eligible to apply to both calls ERC-2022-PoC1 and ERC-2022-PoC2 (second call under the ERC Work Programme 2022, to be published on 16/11/2021).
Synergy Grant Principal Investigators are eligible to apply only with the written consent of all Principal Investigators in the same Synergy Grant project.
Principal Investigators may submit only one proposal under each Work Programme 2022 Proof of Concept call. If further submissions are made at different cut-off dates under call ERC-2022-PoC2, 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 2019 or 2020 may not submit a proposal to the ERC-2022-PoC1 call.
A Principal Investigator whose proposal was rejected on the grounds of a breach of research integrity in the calls for proposals under Work Programmes 2020 or 2021 may not submit a proposal to the ERC-2022-PoC2 call.

Eligible Host Institution:
The Host Institution (Applicant Legal Entity) must engage the Principal Investigator for at least the duration of the proof of concept grant and must be established in a Member state or an Associated Country as a legal entity created under national law. It may also be an international organisation with headquarters in a Member State or associated country. Any type of legal entity, public or private, including universities, research organisations as well as undertakings can host the Principal Investigator and their team (see Annex 3 of the ERC Work Programme 2022).

To be eligible for calls with deadlines in calendar year 2022, 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 fulfill the mandatory requirements listed in Annex 5 of the ERC Work Programme 2022.

Proposal submission and description:
An Information for Applicants guidance is published on the ERC webiste and on the EU Funding & tenders opportunities Portal: it describes in detail how the submission forms should be completed. FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) are also available.
ATTENTION: use the new Part A and Part B forms specific to the ERC PoC Lump Sum call under Horizon Europe -  please download the latest version at the submission link below.
A complete PoC proposal is composed of:
• Administrative Part A form, including the Ethics Review Table (available in section 4): is an electronic 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 capacity and commitment 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 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.

 

2. Eligible countries:

The conditions specific to the ERC are described in the ERC Work Programme 2022 under the heading Admissibility and Eligibility criteria 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.

3. Financial and operational capacity, security and exclusion

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 2022, page 6, footnote 3: Applicants whose proposals are recommended for funding are deemed to fulfil the operational capacity requirements of Article 198(3) of Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 July 2018 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union, amending Regulations (EU) No 1296/2013, (EU) No 1301/2013, (EU) No 1303/2013, (EU) No 1304/2013, (EU) No 1309/2013, (EU) No 1316/2013, (EU) No 223/2014, (EU) No 283/2014, and Decision No 541/2014/EU and repealing Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 966/2012 (OJ L 193, 30.07.2018, p. 1) (the 'Financial Regulation').

Security: Please refer to the ERC Work Programme 2022, Annex 4.

Exclusion: Please refer to the ERC Work Programme 2022 under the heading Admissibility and Eligibility criteria and in the final page of this work programme:
Applicants that are subject to the administrative sanction 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. See articles 136 and 141 of the 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).

 

4. Evaluation and award:

The conditions specific to ERC are described in the ERC Work Programme 2022 under the heading "Evaluation criteria" and "Evaluation outcome", as well as in the ERC Rules for Submission and Evaluation. An overview is provided below:

Evaluation criteria:

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: the breakthrough innovation potential, approach and methodology of the project; and the capacity and commitment 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 2022.

Evaluation process:
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.

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.

Indicative timeline for evaluation are set out in the ERC Work Programme 2022 under the heading “Summary of complementary funding with indicative budget and timetable. 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. The ERC expects that normally proof of concept activities should be completed within 12 months. However, to allow for those projects that require more preparation time, the grant agreements will be signed for 18 months. Extensions of the duration of proof of concept projects may be granted only exceptionally.

 

5. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: is described in the ERC Work Programme 2022 under the heading “Grant amount, duration and assessment”.
See also: Multi & Mono Grant Agreement for Lump Sum Grants

6. Open Science

Open science is a core principle of the ERC. The ERC is committed to the principle of open access to the published output of research, including in particular peer-reviewed articles and monographs. It also supports the basic principle of open access to research data and data related products such as computer code. The ERC considers that providing free online access to all these materials can be the most effective way of ensuring that the fruits of the research it funds can be accessed, read and used as the basis for further research.

Under Horizon Europe, beneficiaries of ERC grants must ensure open access to all peer-reviewed scientific publications relating to their results as set out in the Model Grant Agreement used for ERC actions. Beneficiaries must ensure that they or the authors retain sufficient intellectual property rights to comply with their open access requirements.

In addition, beneficiaries of ERC grants funded under the ERC Work Programme 2022 will be covered by the provisions on research data management as set out in the Model Grant Agreement used for ERC actions. In particular, whenever a project generates research data, beneficiaries are required to manage it in line with the principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability as described by the FAIR principles initiative, and establish a data management plan within the first six months of project implementation. Open access to research data should be ensured under the principle ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’. These provisions are designed to facilitate access, re-use and preservation of the research data generated during the ERC funded research work.

Documents

Call documents:

- Standard application form — call-specific application form is available in the Submission System:
Standard application form (HE ERC POC)

- Information for Applicants to the ERC Proof of Concept Grant 2022 Calls:
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/guidance/information-for-applicants_he-erc-poc_en.pdf

- ERC Guide for Reviewers applying to the Proof of Concept call:
https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/experts/guide-for-peer-reviewers_he-erc-poc_en.pdf

Additional documents:

ERC Rules of submission and evaluation under Horizon Europe

Horizon Europe Regulation

How to complete your ethics self-assessment

EU Financial Regulation

Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment

Multi & Mono Model Grant Agreement for Lump Sum Grants

Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual

Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions

Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement

Reference Documents: This page includes reference documents of the programmes managed on the EU Funding & Tenders portal starting with legal documents and the Commission work programmes up to model grant agreements and guides for specific actions (select the programme to see the reference documents).

ERC PoC Applicants Mailbox - for queries related to the Proof of Concept Calls.

ERC 2022 PoC Call Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): F&T Portal - ERC webiste

Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management.

Online Manual is your guide on the procedures from proposal submission to managing your grant.

IT HOW TO  wiki site provides an online IT manual with screenshots.

ERC National Contat Points (NCP) - Contact your ERC NCP for further assistance in your national language(s).

Research Enquiry Service – ask questions about any aspect of European research in general and the EU Research Framework Programmes in particular.

IT Helpdesk – contact the Funding & Tenders Portal IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc.

Ethics - for compliance with ethical issues, see the Online Manual.

European IPR Helpdesk assists you on intellectual property issues.

The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment - consult the general principles and requirements specifying the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers, employers and funders of researchers.

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union

European Convention on Human Rights