FCT launches Call ERC-PT 2024

On June 20, FCT launched ERC-PT :a new program to attract and retain researchers with highly competitive international profiles to fill permanent positions in research and higher education institutions in Portugal.

Funded under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), this program aims to encourage national institutions to recruit researchers with projects funded by the European Research Council that are currently underway or have been completed within the last 24 months. This new axis of the ERC-Portugal program thus adds the dimension of attracting and retaining talent, increasing its impact and deepening the complementarity between its axes, now including incentives and services covering the various cycles of Calls , from the submission of applications and evaluation process, to incentives and training for future applications, to attracting and retaining researchers with ongoing or recently completed ERC-funded research projects.

The ERC-PT will serve as a support tool for national institutions that, cumulatively:

• Proceed with the recruitment, for an indefinite period, of researchers of national or foreign affiliation responsible for ongoing or recently completed ERC projects;
• In the case of ongoing projects, and at the date of submission of the expression of interest, they must be host institutions for those projects.

The amount of funding will be allocated to institutions based on the period between the start of the ERC-funded project and the hiring for a permanent position. When the ERC-funded project is still ongoing (up to 60 months), the amount of funding will be up to €550,000; if the project has recently been completed (between 60 and 84 months), corresponding to the ERC-PT modality, the amount of funding to be allocated will be up to €450,000. In both attraction and retention modalities, the incentive to hire for a permanent position will apply to the categories of principal investigator or coordinating investigator, or their equivalents in the teaching career.

The application period is open permanently until December 31, 2025 (5:00 p.m. – mainland Portugal time), or until the program's maximum allocation of €11,781,424 is reached, whichever comes first. Further information about the Call be requested via email:ercpt@fct.pt.

The new ERC-PT falls under the resilience dimension of the PRR, and in particular under the component “RE-C06-i06 – Science Plus Training,” contributing to modernizing and deepening the production and transfer of knowledge in all its various cycles.