ERC Awards
The European Research Council, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premiere European funding organisation for excellent frontier researchers. Every year, it selects and funds the very best, creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based in Europe. The ERC offers four core grant schemes: Starting, Consolidator, Advanced and Synergy Grants. With its additional Proof of Concept grant scheme, the ERC helps grantees to bridge the gap between their pioneering research and early phases of its commercialisation. The ERC is led by an independent governing body, the Scientific Council, and is highly sought after for its prestige.
Since 2007, the ERC has funded more than 12,000 projects and over 10,000 researchers, with more than 100,000 evaluations of research proposals. The ERC strives to attract top researchers from anywhere in the world to come to Europe. Evidence of this is the fact that “ERC projects have so far led to over 2,200 patents and other IPR applications and ERC grantees founded or co-founded over 400 start-ups.” Also, ERC grantees have gone on to win “12 Nobel Prizes, 6 Fields Medals, 11 Wolf Prizes and dozens of important prizes”. awarded to ERC grantees
The ERC is led by an independent governing body, the Scientific Council. The ERC President is Maria Leptin, who has held this office since November 2021. The overall ERC budget from 2021 to 2027 is more than €16 billion, as part of the Horizon Europe programme, for which the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth.
Since 2015, CÚRAM’s investigators have received 14 awards from the ERC, including four Starting grants, five Consolidator grants and five Proof of Concept grants.
The ERC’s YouTube channel offers a series of videos with advice ranging from Applying for an ERC Grant, How to Write Part 1 of your ERC proposal, and How to get Your ERC Grant.
Funding Potential
Within Horizon Europe, the European Research Council (ERC) offers attractive, long-term funding to support excellent investigators and their research teams to pursue ground-breaking, high-gain/high-risk research in any field (here).
Since the establishment of the ERC in 2007, CÚRAM researchers have been successful in securing ERC grants (here). Our FIs have also gained valuable experience and insight as active ERC panel members and remote evaluators for all ERC calls.
An ERC Grant at CÚRAM
We encourage and welcome applications from researchers who wish to conduct their ERC research at CÚRAM. We have developed a support mechanism, consisting of training, assistance with support grants, counselling, mentoring and coaching throughout the whole ERC application process.
If interested, contact our EU Grants Officer Dr Emer Garry, emer.garry@universityofgalway.ie
ERC CURRENT
morphoPRINT (2023-2028)
4D bioprinting shape-morphing tissues using phototunable supramolecular hydrogels
ERC Starting Grant Andrew Daly
Arth-Alleve (2023-2028)
Disruptive Therapies for the long-term relief of Osteoarthritis Pain
ERC Consolidator Martin O’Halloran
MULT2D: (2019-2024)
Multiscale Mechanics of bone Fragility in Type-2 Diabetes
ERC Starting Grant Ted Vaughan
DEEP FIELD (2021- 2026)
Magnetic sensors for image-guided surgery
ERC Consolidator Padraig Cantillon Murphy, UCC
ACHIEVE (2021-2026)
Advanced Cellular Hierarchical Tissue-Imitations based on Excluded Volume Effect
ERC Consolidator Dimitrios Zeugolis, UCD
MEMETic (2020-2025)
Mechanobiologically mimetic model systems for study of Bone disease
ERC Consolidator Laoise McNamara
ERC COMPLETED
DBSModel (End Date 2021)
Multiscale Modelling of the Neuromuscular System for Closed Loop Deep Brain Stimulation
ERC Consolidator Madeleine Lowery
DBScontrol (End Date Feb 2022)
Implementation and preclinical testing of a closed-loop control for deep brain stimulation
ERC Proof of Concept Madeleine Lowery
EndoSolve (End Date 2021)
A novel medical device for the treatment of Endometriosis
ERC Proof of Concept Martin O’Halloran
COSIP (End Date 2020)
Clarifying Optimal Sodium Intake Project
ERC Starting Grant Martin O'Donnell
HydroLieve (End Date 2020)
A long-lasting non-migrating hydrogel for relieving chronic pain
ERC Proof of Concept Martin O’Halloran
BioElecPro (End Date 2020)
Frontier Research on the Dielectric Properties of Biological Tissue
ERC Starting Grant Martin O’Halloran
DRAIOCHT (End Date 2019)
A low-cost, minimally invasive and safe method for permanently treating varicose veins.
ERC Proof of Concept Martin O’Halloran
RÉALTA (End Date 2018)
Challenging Hypertension Through Novel Medical Device Development
ERC Proof of Concept Martin O’Halloran