The fundamental activity of the ERC is to provide attractive, long-term funding to support excellent investigators and their research teams to pursue ground-breaking, high-gain/ high-risk research.

• May be awarded up to a maximum of 2.5 million euro for a period of 5 years*
• up to an additional 1'000'000 EUR** can be requested in the proposal to cover:
  • eligible "start-up" costs for Principal Investigators moving to the EU or an Associated Country from elsewhere as a consequence of receiving the ERC grant
  • the purchase of major equipment
  • access to large facilities

• The Principal investigator funded through the ERC Consolidator Grant shall spend a minimum of 30% of his/her total working time on the ERC project

*the maximum award is reduced pro-rata temporis for projects of a shorter duration
**additional funding is not subject to pro-rata temporis

• May be awarded up to a maximum of 2 million euro for a period of 5 years*
• up to an additional 750'000 EUR** can be requested in the proposal to cover:
  • eligible "start-up" costs for Principal Investigators moving to the EU or an Associated Country from elsewhere as a consequence of receiving the ERC grant
  • the purchase of major equipment
  • access to large facilities
• The Principal investigator funded through the ERC Consolidator Grant shall spend a minimum of 50% of his/her total working time on the ERC project

*the maximum award is reduced pro-rata temporis for projects of a shorter duration
**additional funding is not subject to pro-rata temporis

• May be awarded up to a maximum of 1.5 million euro for a period of 5 years*
• up to an additional 500'000 EUR** can be requested in the proposal to cover:
  • eligible "start-up" costs for Principal Investigators moving to the EU or an Associated Country from elsewhere as a consequence of receiving the ERC grant
  • the purchase of major equipment
  • access to large facilities
• The Principal investigator funded through the ERC Starting Grant shall spend a minimum of 50% of his/her total working time on the ERC project

*the maximum award is reduced pro-rata temporis for projects of a shorter duration
**additional funding is not subject to pro-rata temporis

A CFS (audit certificate) is required only once, at the end of the project, when the EC contribution exceeds 325,000€. The cost of the CFS shall be foreseen in the budget of projects where CERN’s contribution exceeds the threshold. The typical cost of a CFS is 5000€. Contradictory to FP7, costs for obtaining the CFS should be declared as “other direct costs” (and not subcontracting).

The overhead rate for ERC projects is 25%.
The procedure regarding the internal distribution of overheads is available here.