The ERC made a number of changes between the 2014 and 2015 Work Programmes, which are summarised in this article.
- There is now no maximum limit for extensions to the eligibility window for Starting and Consolidator Grant calls.
- Extensions to eligibility are now available for long term (over 90 days) illness of a relative (child, spouse, parent, sibling) as well as of the PI.
- There has been a slight increase to the budget for Proof of Concept grants from EUR 15 million to EUR 20 million.
- There are now 3 rather than 2 deadlines for the Proof of Concept call (February 2015/May 2015/October 2015).
- There is no longer a pre-allocated budget split between the 3 domains (PE, LS, SH), the split will be determined based on the number of applications to each domain.
- There is a new rule on multiple applications: ‘a PI may submit proposals to different ERC frontier grant calls under the same Work Programme, but only the first eligible proposal will be evaluated’.
- The Consolidator Grant call now only requires 40% time commitment from the PI (in previous years this was 50%).