ERC-PT Careers

Program to attract and retain researchers with ERC projects already funded (ongoing or recently completed) to take up permanent positions in institutions of the National System of Science and Technology and Higher Education.

In addition to ERC PT - Careersthe ERC-Portugal program includes two more axes: the ERC-PT Pre-assessment and ERC-PT A Projects.

Objectives and Scope

Every year, the European Research Council (ERC) launches funding opportunities for researchers with highly demanding and rigorous evaluation and selection processes. Researchers with funding obtained in these processes, with highly competitive profiles at international level, offer a unique potential for empowering the institutions that make up the National Science and Technology System (SNCT) and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).

In this context, FCT has created a new program to attract these researchers to permanent positions in research and higher education institutions in Portugal - ERC-PT Careers - funded by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR). The ERC-Portugal Programme falls under the resilience dimension of the RRP, and in particular under the "RE-C06-i06 - Science Plus Capacity Building" component, helping to modernize and deepen the production and transfer of knowledge in all its various cycles.

The program will foster the development of the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, with a focus on supporting basic research, promoting knowledge transfer, or strengthening cross-sector collaboration. It also adds to the ERC-Portugal program objectives and funding associated with attracting talent, including attracting more international investment in science, technology and innovation, and strengthening national R&D capacity within the scope of European research and innovation programs. This funding is intended as an incentive for SNCT institutions or HEIs to recruit researchers whose projects are recommended for funding by the European Research Council, helping to modernize and deepen the production and transfer of knowledge in all its various cycles.

To these attraction objectives, ERC-PT Careers adds a talent retention dimension, also promoting the stabilization, in permanent positions, of researchers who are already working in Portugal. The ERC-PT Careers Program will thus contribute to the goal of raising and consolidating the level of excellence of research carried out in Portugal, while at the same time promoting the sustainability of research teams and their lead researchers. It will also provide the SNCT with greater capacity to achieve the ambitious national goal of doubling its funding from European Programs in the 2021-2027 period compared to 2014-2020, attracting around two billion euros in funding from the European Union in the areas of Research and Innovation.

This program is also in line with the Council Conclusions of May 2021 on the attractiveness and sustainability of research careers, adopted during the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Characterization and types of financing

ERC-PT Careers will act as a support instrument for national institutions that, cumulatively:

1. Recruit, for an indefinite period, researchers of national or foreign affiliation responsible for ongoing or recently concluded ERC projects;
2. In the case of projects in progress, and at the time of submission of the expression of interest, they are host institutions for these projects.

The funding granted by the ERC-PT Careers Program is linked to the stage of execution of the ERC project of the researcher to be recruited, and is also extended to the recruitment of researchers who have completed their ERC projects in less than 24 months. This promotes a specific form of this program - the new ERC-PT Follow-Up - which, under more advantageous conditions, establishes a more attractive parallel with the existing ERC instrument, Proof of Concept. In this way, and in a comprehensive way, the importance of boosting the research carried out in ERC projects, in its various execution cycles, including its subsequent phases, and even, where applicable, diversified levels of knowledge transfer, is recognized.

The ERC-PT Careers Program has two types of funding:

• ERC-PT Careers ATTRACT: this typology aims to encourage the recruitment, for permanent positions, of researchers with an ERC project underway, or which has been concluded less than 2 years ago, who have foreign institutions as their host institution, and who transfer the execution of these projects to SNCT institutions or HEIs;
• ERC-PT Careers RETAIN: this typology aims to encourage the recruitment, for permanent positions, of researchers in non-permanent positions in SNCT or HEI institutions and with an active ERC project or one that was concluded less than 2 years ago;

A. ERC-PT Careers | ATTRACT

For the ATTRACT typology, the financial support is intended to cover the national institution's costs for hosting projects that are transferred from foreign institutions.

The funding amounts depend on how long the ERC project takes to complete, between the start of the project and the time the researchers are recruited for an indefinite period by an SNCT institution or HEI. Thus, depending on the time elapsed, the funding amounts are as shown in the table below:

To calculate these time intervals, the dates of the start of the ERC project, as indicated in the grant agreement, and the date of publication of the national institution's call for open-ended contracts should be used.

B. ERC-PT Careers | RETAIN

For the RETAIN typology, the funding will consist of an incentive to recruit researchers, with national affiliation, responsible for ERC projects in progress or completed less than 24 months ago, restricted to the categories of the Scientific Research Career Statute (ECIC), the University Teaching Career Statute (ECDU) or the Career Statute for Polytechnic Higher Education Teaching Staff (ECPDESP) indicated in the "Conditions of access and eligibility" section (point d). This financial incentive is calculated as the value equivalent to 2 (two) years of salary costs for hires made under the three career statutes mentioned.

Final Beneficiaries

The final beneficiaries are the following institutions:

1. Higher Education Institutions.
2. R&D institutions with legal personality.
   This category includes non-business entities in the Research and Development (R&D) system, namely:
   1. Higher Education Institutions, their Institutes and R&D Units;
   2. Associate Laboratories;
   3. State laboratories;
   4. International laboratories based in Portugal;
   5. Private non-profit institutions whose main purpose is R&D activities;
   6. Collaborative Laboratories;
   7. Technology and Innovation Centers.
3. In the case of R&D Units without legal personality, applications must be submitted by the institution with legal personality in which they are integrated and by the head of the same institution.

Period for submitting applications

The period for submitting applications is open permanently until 5 p.m. Lisbon time on December 31, 2025, or until the program's maximum allocation of €11,781,424 is reached, whichever comes first. Monthly eligibility checks are carried out on the expressions of interest submitted.

In the event that the maximum allocation is completed in one of the monthly application selection periods, funding will be awarded using the criterion of the date of submission.

Contact

Information about the Call should be requested via email: ercpt@fct.pt. FCT invites institutions interested in benefiting from this support to contact FCT, (even if) at a preliminary stage of the research contracting process.