• Posted 27-Apr-2020

Top-up funding awarded to ERC grantees to spur innovation

Fifty-five grantees of the European Research Council have been awarded ERC Proof of Concept grants to explore the commercial or societal potential of their research results. The grants are part of the EU's research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020.

The awarded projects cover a variety of topics e.g., a faster and cheaper approach to detect disease-causing microorganisms; low-power, energy-harvesting hearing implants; or developing a sustainable social business to manage and ethically distribute donated DNA data to scientists. 

• Full details of highlighted projects
• List of the 55 recipients by country of host institution

Proof of Concept (PoC) grants, worth €150,000 each, can be used for example to explore business opportunities, prepare patent applications or verify the practical viability of scientific concepts. 

The new grants were awarded to researchers working in 17 countries: Austria (1 grant), Switzerland (2), Cyprus (1), Germany (9), Spain (5), Finland (1), France (3), Israel (5), Italy (4), Luxembourg (1), Netherlands (3), Norway (1) Poland (1), Portugal (1), Sweden (3), Turkey (1) and the UK (13). 

The grant scheme is only open to ERC grantees. Over 1000 grantees have received PoC funding since 2011. They can apply for funding in one of the three rounds of the call every year, the second deadline being 7 May 2020 (further information here). This announcement concerns the first 2020 round, in which the ERC evaluated 146 applications. The budget for the whole 2020 competition is €25 million. 

Source: European Research Council News (https://bit.ly/3bJ6pJz)