ERC awards 34 leading researchers with a Proof of Concept grant

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded 34 top researchers with a Proof of Concept Grant. In this call, a total of 67 grants have now been awarded. The researchers have received up to € 150,000 each. The first 33 grants were already announced in September 2013. The projects cover everything from an exploration of the molecular foundations of psychiatric disorders to technological innovations that could help rescue skiers caught in avalanches, or measure extreme waves.

In the second round of funding, grants go to researchers in 13 countries across the European Research Area: the Netherlands (5), Germany (4), the United Kingdom (4), Ireland (3), Israel (3), Spain (3), Switzerland (3), Belgium (2), France (2), Sweden (2), Denmark (1), Finland (1) and Italy (1).
147 proposals were submitted in this second round. The budget of the entire call is € 10 million, of which nearly € 5 million was available for this second round. The next Proof of Concept call 2014 is currently open. The closing date is April 1, 2014.

The European Research Council supports frontier research, cross disciplinary proposals and pioneering ideas in new and emerging fields which introduce unconventional and innovative approaches. The ERC's mission is to encourage the highest quality research in Europe through competitive funding and to support investigator-driven frontier research across all fields of research, on the basis of scientific excellence.