The European Research Council (ERC) has launched its 2027 Work Program

The European Research Council (ERC) has published its 2027 Work Program, setting out the rules and timeline for the upcoming Calls what is Europe’s leading frontier research program.

This is the final Call for Proposals under the current framework program for funding research and innovation in Europe, which introduces a series of changes to the application rules, as previously announced. Notable changes in this regard include the expansion of the eligibility windows for the Starting Grant and Consolidator Grant categories—reflecting the diversity of scientific career paths and the specific nature of the research fields themselves—as well as the introduction of a requirement that researchers may have only one project approved for these categories during their entire career.

The first call for proposals under this new Work Plan is the Starting Grant. This call for proposals is now open, with a deadline for submitting proposals of October 14, 2026.

Researchers can still access the ERC-PT program, provided by FCT. This innovative and free service helps increase the competitiveness of proposals from the national scientific community. The schedule for this service is available here and is already aligned with the official ERC calendar.

For more information about the new Research Program, visit the ERC website.