Horizon Europe | ERC Consolidator Grant Call 2026
The ERC Consolidator Grants are designed to support excellent Principal Investigators at the career stage at which they may still be consolidating their own independent research team or program. Principal Investigators must demonstrate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their scientific proposal.
ERC Consolidator Grants are open to all topics and disciplines. Applications are evaluated by 12–16 reviewers in 28 evaluation panels.
ERC Panels are categorized along the following domains:
- Physical Sciences and Engineering
- Life Sciences
- Social Sciences and Humanities
ERC Consolidator Grant applicants must embed their project in one or two panels.
Target group
The Principal Investigator must have successfully defended their first PhD at least 7 and up to 12 years prior to 1 January 2026. This means a successful defense of the PhD between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2018 (inclusive).
The eligibility periods can be extended beyond 7 and 12 years for certain properly documented circumstances, such as maternity and paternity leaves, long-term illness or other. All exeptions are listed in the ERC Work Programme 2026.
Funding sum
Consolidator Grants may be awarded up to a maximum of EUR 2 mio. for a period of 5 years.
Application
The deadline for applications is January 13, 2026 at 17h.
More information can be found on the website of the European Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/ERC-2026-COG?order=DESC&pageNumber=1&pageSize=50&sortBy=startDate&keywords=ERC-2026-COG&isExactMatch=true&status=31094501,31094502,31094503