Brussels, 3 December 2024
The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded its 2024 Consolidator Grants to 328 researchers across Europe. These grants, totalling €678 million, aim to support outstanding scientists and scholars as they establish their independent research teams and develop their most promising scientific ideas. The funding is provided through the EU’s Horizon Europe programme.
Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, said:
One of my key priorities is to ensure Europe is a global leader in research and innovation. It can only be achieved by retaining and attracting top talent such as today’s laureates of ERC Consolidator Grants. It is my mission to expand the European Research Council which will help strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and fostering ground-breaking discoveries and solutions to the challenges we face
President of the European Research Council Prof. Maria Leptin said:
Congratulations to all the researchers who have won ERC Consolidator Grants in this latest round for the mid-career stage. Whilst we had the funds available to back more applicants this year than in 2023, the fact remains that many applicants who were rated as excellent in this competition will still not be funded due to lack of budget. This waste of talent can only be tackled by increasing the investment in blue sky research in Europe.
Projects selected for funding
The grants will support scientific projects spanning all disciplines of research from engineering to life sciences to humanities. For example, researchers will try to understand better what influences people’s responses to immigrants, or use the AI to improve firefighting strategies, or analyse how the voters of a losing party can come to accept their loss in democratic elections.
Facts and figures
The laureates of this grant competition will carry out their projects at universities and research centres in 25 EU Member States and other countries associated with Horizon Europe. The highest numbers of grants will be located in Germany (67 projects), France (38), the UK (38) and the Netherlands (37). There are nationals of 43 countries among the winners of this call, notably Germans (60 researchers), French (34) and Italians (29). The grants will likely create around 2 750 jobs for postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and other staff at the host institutions.
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.The European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation Ekaterina Zaharieva is responsible for this programme from 1 December 2024.
More info
- Projects
- Statistics
- List of all selected researchers
- Grantees by Country of Host Institution and Domain – ERC Consolidator Grants 2024
Lists of selected researchers by domain: