Today, the European Research Council (ERC) announced several operational changes that will be implemented for a smooth transition towards the successor programme to Horizon 2020,
Horizon Europe.
the calendar of the calls in the initial year of Horizon Europe will likely differ from the calendar for 2020. The ERC Frontier grants (Starting, Consolidator, Advanced) are still expected to be launched in 2021 and 2022, but the first calls will be launched only in January 2021. The call schedule is expected to be back to the usual opening and closing timeframes by mid-2022.
the ERC Synergy grant will likely not be available in the ERC work programme for 2021, but it will probably be available again starting from 2022.
the timeline shifts are not expected to affect the eligibility periods of the candidates applying for Starting and Consolidator grants.
a new panel will be added for Social Sciences and Humanities: SH7 – ‘Human Mobility, Environment and Space’, to cover research in the fields of human geography, demography, health, sustainability science, territorial planning and spatial analysis.
a new panel will be added for Physical Sciences & Engineering: PE11 – ‘Materials Engineering’, to cover research relating to “Advanced materials development: performance enhancement, modelling, large-scale preparation, modification, tailoring, optimization, novel and combined use of materials, etc.”.
the panels for Life Science have been redefined and descriptors enriched. A complete list of the new panel structure starting from 2021 is available here.
similarly to Starting and Consolidator grants, interviews will be introduced for ERC Advanced grants in Step 2 of the evaluation.
for the moment, no changes are expected for the ERC Proof of Concept grants.
A detailed description of the changes can be found here. Get in touch with us to plan your next steps and ensure that you are fully prepared for the transition from Horizon 2020 to Horizon Europe.