The ERC selects 349 mid-career researchers for €728 million in Consolidator Grants

The European Research Council (ERC) has selected 349 mid-career researchers to receive this year's Consolidator Grants. With funding from the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, these grants will support cutting-edge research

2025-12-09

(Press-News.org) Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, said: ‘Congratulations to all the researchers on winning the ERC grants. The record budget of 728 million euro invested to support these scientific projects shows the EU is serious about making the continent attractive for excellent researchers.’

President of the European Research Council, Prof. Maria Leptin, said: ‘To see all this talent with groundbreaking ideas, based in Europe, is truly inspiring. This bold research may well lead to new industries, improve lives and strengthen Europe’s global standing. This was one of the most competitive ERC calls ever, with record demand and also many excellent projects left unfunded. It is yet another reminder of how urgent the call for increased EU investment in frontier research has become.’

Research selected for funding

These ERC Consolidator Grants will enable researchers to pursue their own ideas in a broad range of disciplines. For example, a chemist in Slovenia aims to construct powered protein motors, a researcher working on the interface between biology and chemistry in the Netherlands will use quantum sensing to detect sepsis at an early stage; a materials scientist in Spain will design nanoparticles to target tumour cells; a psychotherapist in Italy will develop an algorithm for psychological care to predict how children might respond to mental health interventions; and a historian in Poland will study the decline of the Late Roman Empire in its provinces.

about these examples of selected projects

Facts and figures

The selected researchers plan to conduct their research at universities and research centres in 25 countries, including the United Kingdom (65 grants), Germany (58 grants), the Netherlands (40 grants) and Spain (26 grants). They come from Europe and other parts of the world, representing 44 different nationalities. Notably, the largest groups are German (48), Italian (37) and Britons (33) researchers. Some 38% of the researchers selected are women; a figure that has remained stable over the past few years.
The ERC received 3,121 applications for this call - a 35 percent increase compared with the previous round.

See more statistics and the full list of winners

About the ERC

The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe. The ERC offers four core grant schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants and Synergy Grants. With its additional Proof of Concept Grant scheme, the ERC helps grantees to bridge the gap between their pioneering research and early phases of its commercialisation. The ERC is led by an independent governing body, the Scientific Council. Maria Leptin has been the President of the ERC since November 2021. The overall ERC budget from 2021 to 2027 is more than €16 billion, as part of the Horizon Europe programme, which is under the responsibility of Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation. 

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