Proof of Concept Grant

General conditions 1. Admissibility conditions: Proposal page limit and layout The conditions specific to the ERC grants are described in the ERC Work Programme 2027 under the heading “ Admissibility, Eligibility, and Resubmission Restrictions” and in the ERC Rules for Submission and Evaluation. An overview is provided below: Eligible Principal Investigator: The ERC Proof of Concept Grant 2027 call is open to Principal Investigators whose ERC main frontier research grant is ongoing, or Principal Investigators whose ERC main frontier research grant ends on or after 1 January 2026, subject to restrictions provided in Annex 3 of the ERC Work Programme 2027. Resubmission Restrictions: Principal Investigators may submit ONLY ONE proposal under this Work Programme Proof of Concept 2027 call. If an applicant submits several proposals on different cut-off dates within the same call year, only the first admissible and eligible proposal will be evaluated. A Principal Investigator whose proposal was rejected on the grounds of a breach of research integrity in the calls for proposals under Work Programmes 2025 or 2026 may not submit a proposal to the ERC-2027-PoC call. Synergy Grant Principal Investigators are eligible to apply to the Proof of Concept call only with the written consent of all Principal Investigators in the same Synergy Grant project. Principal Investigators in the same Synergy Grant project can submit one Proof of Concept application each under this Work Programme. 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. Proof of Concept Grants may run in parallel provided they comply with the eligibility conditions set out in the Work Programme under which they have been awarded. Eligible Host Institution: The Host Institution (Applicant Legal Entity) must engage the Principal Investigator for at least the duration of the Proof of Concept project, as defined in the Grant Agreement, and must be established in a Member State or an Associated Country as a legal entity created under applicable national law (see also "Eligible countries' below). Any type of legal entity, public or private, including a university, a research organisation, or an undertaking can host a Principal Investigator and their team. To participate in ERC frontier research actions the Host Institution must be established either in an EU Member State or in an Associated Country as a legal entity created under national law, or it may be an international European research organisation (such as the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), etc.), or any other entity created under EU law. International organisations with headquarters in an EU Member State or Associated Country shall be deemed to be established in that Member State or Associated Country. Where they bring added scientific value to the project, additional team members may be hosted by other legal entities, which may be established anywhere, including outside the European Union or Associated Countries, or international organisations, subject to restrictions provided in Annex 3 of the ERC Work Programme 2027. Legal entities established outside the European Union or an Associated Country are eligible for funding in the following cases: ▪ their participation is deemed essential for carrying out the action, ▪ they host team members bringing added scientific value to the project, provided that they are not excluded from participation or subject to restrictive measures set out in Annex 3 of the ERC Work Programme 2027. Gender Equality Plan: To be eligible, legal entities from a Member State or an 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 fulfil the mandatory requirements listed in Annex 5 to the ERC Work Programme 2027. 2. Eligible countries The conditions specific to the ERC are described in the ERC Work Programme 2027 under the heading “Admissibility, Eligibility, and Resubmission Restrictions” and in Annex 3. An overview is provided below: ERC grant schemes are open to researchers of any age and nationality, residing anywhere in the world at the time of application (except those subject to restrictions outlined in Annex 3 of the ERC Work Programme 2027), and wishing to carry out their research in one of the EU or Associated Country-based Host Institutions. A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have put in place specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See further information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide. 3. Other Eligibility Conditions To be admitted to the competition, a proposal must be complete, readable, and accessible, and must be submitted before the relevant call deadline. Applications to the ERC 2027 Proof of Concept Grant call will be evaluated and selected in two rounds, based on two specific cut-off deadline. Incomplete proposals may be declared inadmissible (see below: “Proposal submission and description”). The content of the proposal must relate to the objectives and to the grant type set out in the call, as defined in the ERC Work Programme 2027. If a proposal is considered not to relate to the objectives of the grant and/or call for proposals, it will be declared ineligible. Where there is a doubt on the admissibility or eligibility of a proposal, the evaluation may proceed pending a decision of the Responsible Authorising Officer following the opinion of the admissibility and eligibility review committee. If it becomes clear before, during, or after the evaluation, 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. Proposal submission and description: An Information for Applicants guidance document is published on the ERC website and on the Funding & Tenders Portal: it describes in detail how the submission forms should be completed. A list of Frequently Asked Questions (F&Qs) is also available below (see: 'Topic Q&As'). ATTENTION: please use the new Part A and Part B forms specific to the ERC PoC Lump Sum Grant call 2027 under Horizon Europe by downloading the latest version at the submission link below. A complete PoC proposal is composed of: • the Administrative Part A form: an electronic submission 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 first need to register to the Funding & tender opportunities Participant Portal.) • the Proposal Part B form and annexes: download the templates available from the submission link below (at step 5, after creation of draft proposal), complete it and upload the final version in PDF format only before submitting the proposal 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 strategic lead and project management of the Principal Investigator (max. 1 page). • the Host Institution 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 (excluding the headers, the title of the proposal, the abstract, the references, and the risk mitigation table) 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 can be found in the ' IT HOW TO ' wiki site. Early registration and submission are strongly recommended and should be done as early as possible before the call deadline. 4. Financial and operational capacity 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 2027 page 40 (footnote 84): Applicants subject to the administrative sanction of exclusion or in one of the exclusion situations set out by the EU Financial Regulation are banned from receiving EU grants and CANNOT participate. See articles 138 and 143 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) on the final page of this Work Programme. Security: Please refer to the ERC Work Programme 2027, Annex 4. Exclusion: Please refer to the ERC Work Programme 2027, page 71: In application of Article 143 of the Financial Regulation, applicants that are subject to the administrative sanction of exclusion or are in one of the exclusion situations set out in Article 138(1) of the Financial Regulation are banned from receiving EU grants and cannot participate. 5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds Proof of Concept Grants are awarded in relation to an ERC-funded project under one of the main grants scheme. 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 of the Proof of Concept Grant shall draw substantially on the research carried out as part of the ERC main grant. Excellence is the sole criterion of evaluation. It will be applied in conjunction to the evaluation of both: (1) the breakthrough innovation potential, approach, and methodology of the project and (2) the strategic leadership and project management skills 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 2027. 5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes Each proposal is evaluated by a number of independent experts working individually. The experts assess a proposal for each of the three evaluation elements on a scale of 0 to 5 (broken down in increments of 0.5). Scores below 3 are considered fail marks. The three evaluation elements are: 1.a Breakthrough innovation potential; 1.b Approach and methodology; and 1.c. Principal Investigator - Strategic Leadership and Project Management. For a proposal to be considered for funding, it must receive a pass mark (i.e. a score of 3 or higher) on each of the three evaluation elements from a majority of experts. By contrast, a proposal that has received a score of 2.5 or lower on any of the evaluation elements by a majority experts, is considered as having failed, thus it will not be ranked and will not be funded. If the designated budget is insufficient to finance all the proposals that merit funding (i.e. are awarded an overall pass mark), these proposals are ranked according to the marks received from the experts and sorted in the order the evaluation elements appear above. Proposals are funded in the order of this ranking. If necessary, the experts shall meet as an evaluation panel, to determine the priority order of proposals of the same ranking. A Seal of Excellence is awarded to proposals that have received a score of 3 or higher from a majority of experts on each of the evaluation elements but cannot be funded due to the budget constraints of the call. 5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement Indicative timeline for evaluation of the ERC-2027-PoC call are set out in the ERC Work Programme 2027, in Table 7 (page 38): “Provisional Details of Additional Actions”. 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. Extensions of the duration of proof of concept projects may be granted when duly justified. The indicative budget for the ERC-2027-PoC call is EUR 60 000 000. 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants is described in the ERC Work Programme 2027, under the heading “Grant size and Duration”. See also: Multi & Mono Grant Agreement for Lump Sum Grants. Specific conditions Beneficiaries of a Proof of Concept Grant must meet the same obligations concerning gender balance, open access and intellectual property rights as recipients of ERC main grants (see sections 1.7.2 Gender Balance, 1.7.3 Open Science, and 1.7.4 Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of the ERC Workprogramme 2027). Gender Balance: Under Horizon Europe, beneficiaries of ERC grants must take all measures to promote equal opportunities between men and women in the implementation of the action and aim for a gender balance at all levels of personnel assigned to the action, including at supervisory and managerial level, as set out in the Model Grant Agreement for ERC actions. ERC Principal Investigators should also determine the relevance of integrating sex and gender analysis into their research. Legal entities from an EU Member State or an Associated Country that are public bodies, research organisations, or higher education establishments (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 fulfil the mandatory requirements listed in Annex 5 of the ERC Workprogramme 2027. Open Science: Under Horizon Europe, all beneficiaries (including those of ERC grants) must ensure immediate open access to all peer-reviewed scientific publications relating to their results as set out in the Model Grant Agreement used for ERC actions. Open access must be provided with full re use rights. 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 this Work Programme 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 from the ERC-funded research. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR): The Granting Authority may, up to four years after the end of the action, object to a transfer of ownership or to the exclusive licensing of results, as set out in the specific provision of Annex 5 of the Model Grant Agreement for ERC actions. Additional obligations to grant non exclusive licenses for the exploitation of results (for up to four years after the end of the action), at the request of the Granting Authority, apply to beneficiaries of ERC frontier research grants in case of a public emergency. Specific conditions described in the topic conditions