Grants demonstrate the potential of ideas arising from ERC funded projects.

The European Research Council (ERC) is part of the Pillar I (Excellent Science) strand of Horizon Europe. The ERC provides long-term funding to support excellent investigators and their research teams to pursue ground-breaking, high gain and high risk research.

The ERC operates five main grant programmes to support projects and investigators at progressive stages of development: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants, Synergy Grants and the Proof of Concept Grants. Submissions are now open for the 2026 round of ERC Proof of Concept Grants, which provide funding for existing or recent recipients of one of the other four main ERC awards to enable them to establish proof of concept of an idea that was generated in the course of their ERC-funded projects.

Funding will help to facilitate the exploration of the commercial and social innovation potential of ERC-funded research. The objective is to enable ERC-funded ideas to progress on the path from ground-breaking research towards innovation.

Activities that may be funded by the grant include the following:

• Testing, experimenting, demonstrating and validating the idea.
• Conducting research required to achieve proof of concept and to address the weaknesses uncovered by them.
• Establishing viability, technical issues and overall direction.
• Clarifying IPR protection or knowledge transfer strategy.
• Involving industrial partners, societal or cultural organisations, policymakers or any other potential stakeholder supporting the translation of research results into innovation.
• Assessing potential ‘end users’ of the expected innovation.

All Principal Investigators (PIs) in one of the ERC frontier research main grants (Starting, Consolidator, Advanced or Synergy) are eligible to participate and apply for an ERC Proof of Concept Grant. The PI must be able to demonstrate the relation between the idea to be taken to proof of concept and the ERC frontier research project in question.

A maximum of three Proof of Concept Grants may be awarded per main grant project. The exception is for Synergy Grants, in which case a maximum of six Proof of Concept Grants may be awarded per ERC funded project. Synergy Grant PIs are eligible to apply only with the written consent of all PIs in the same Synergy Grant project.

PIs of any nationality may apply to carry out research in a host institution established in an EU Member State or Associated Country. Public or private institutions, including universities, research organisations and undertakings can host the PI. International organisations with headquarters in an EU Member State or Associated Country are also eligible.

The total budget of the call is €60 million to fund 400 proposals. The financial contribution will be awarded as a lump sum of €150,000. The ERC expects that normally proof of concept activities should be completed within 12 months; however, to allow for those projects that require more preparation time, the grant agreements will be signed for 18 months.