The Programme sets out funding opportunities, budgets of the calls, the calendar of grant competition and conditions for ERC funding.

The work programme also introduces new grounds for the extension of the eligibility periods for Starting Grants and Consolidator Grants. Extensions will be granted in duly documented cases, where the applicant has been prevented from working or their working hours have been reduced due to a disability or a major natural or man-made disaster.

The 8th ERC-CZ competition results, announced annually by the Ministry of Education and Science, have been released! Researchers from the UK have received 4 ERC-CZ grants to support their projects for the next two to five years.

Associate Professor Pavla Brennan Kearns, Professor Lucie Doležalová, Associate Professor Stanislav Nagy and Pavel Veselý, PhD. Congratulations to all!

These are frontier research projects that received excellent evaluations in the ERC programme but were not supported due to lack of funding.

The annual ERC workshops organized by the Prague Technology Centre and the ERC Expert Group to support applicants in ERC calls will undergo several significant changes from 2024. Although the structure and content of the workshops will remain the same, the admission procedure for the workshops will see several changes this year.

• Due to its limited capacity, the Expert Group for supporting ERC applicants will now focus solely on the younger generation of scientists. Thus, only ERC Starting and ERC Consolidator grant applicants will be eligible for participation in the workshops. Exceptionally, also ERC Synergy grant applicants will be admitted, provided their professional age (i.e. the period since the PhD defence) falls within the two categories specified above.

• The admission will be based on a „first come, first served“ basis. For this reason, we are asking applicants to prepare the requested materials as early as possible. Registration will open on 11 March 2024 at 12:00 (noon). The final deadline for registration and sending supporting documentation will be on 14 April 2024. In case the capacity (incl. the reserve list) is reached before 14 April 2024, registration will be closed earlier.

As in previous years, to participate, applicants will be required to fill in an online registration form, and, subsequently, send by e-mail the project title and abstract as well as the applicant’s CV and track record in the form and length according to the ERC Work Programme 2024. To be admitted, the date and time of delivery of complete materials will be decisive.

The workshops will be held according to a standard schedule in May, June and September 2024. 

• 15 May 2024 – Life Sciences (LS)

• 16 May 2024 – Physical Sciences and Engineering (PE)

• 17 May 2024 – Social Sciences and Humanities (SH)

On November 15, 2023, the National ERC Grants Information Day, the largest annual event dedicated to the opportunities offered by the European Research Council, took place at Charles University. The event was organized by the Prague Technology Centre in cooperation with Charles University and the Expert Group to support applicants in ERC calls. The event was attended by 100 participants. Thank you for the great interest in participation!

If you were unable to attend the Information Day in person, you can now watch the whole event on the TC Prague YouTube channel.