Research Support

The Research Information and Funding Support team supports you during the search for a funding programme suitable to your project idea and offers information about European and international funding programmes. Moreover, our staff can help you with administrative/official tasks of the application and provides you with persons of contact in respective advisory institutions.

We are happy to support you with our expertise at the Research Support!

ERC: Work Programme 2024 published

The ERC funds basic research characterized as frontier research. In the ERC Work Programme 2024 a total budget of EUR 2.2 billion is earmarked for this purpose. Funding of EUR 1.5 to 2.5 million per research group is provided, depending on the funding line. Projects are funded for a duration of up to five years. The program is open to all fields of research and calls for proposals are published annually.

The four main funding lines are the following:

• ERC Starting Grants for early-career researchers 2 to 7 years after their PhD;
• ERC Consolidator Grants for researchers 7 to 12 years after their PhD;
• ERC Advanced Grants for established researchers;
• ERC Synergy Grants for groups of two to four researchers

Since the ERC Work Programme 2023 the following important change has been included:

• Two additional reasons for extension of the eligibility windows for the candidates for Starting and Consolidator Grants are introduced: 1) researchers seeking asylum; 2) researchers who are victims of a natural disaster.

The following dates for the call opening or submission deadline have been announced:

The individual calls are listed in the Funding & Tenders Portal (europa.eu). For more information and in-depth consulting, please feel free to contact our EU team in Research Support (eu-research@uni-frankfurt.de). We will support you in all aspects of the application process!

ERC: Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023/24 Cluster 6

On December 6^th, 2022, the EU Commission published the final version of the Horizon Europe work programme with the calls for 2023 and 2024.

The Horizon Europe mandate for Cluster 6 “Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment” provides opportunities to strengthen and balance environmental, social and economic goals and to set economic activities on a path towards sustainability. Therefore, the underlying paradigm of Cluster 6 is the need for a transformative change of the EU economy and society to reduce environmental degradation, halt and reverse the decline of biodiversity and better manage natural resources while meeting the EU’s climate objectives and ensuring food and water security. The programme considers geopolitical context and the new research and innovation priorities focused on further strengthening the EU’s open strategic autonomy in particular in the energy and food sectors.

The work programme and calls for Cluster 6 are available here. You will soon find the new tenders for all destinations of Cluster 6 as well as the Water and Soil Mission on the Funding & Tenders portal of the EU Commission.

Please contact the Research Support’s EU team eu-research@uni-frankfurt.de with inquiries about the application procedure or your project ideas.

Fundable are travel expenses for administrative meetings and material expenses (includes funding of supporting staff, editorial reports and costs for translation, in case of ERC-proposals costs for coaching and interview training)

Max. 5000 Euro: EU-collaborative projects, ITN, ERA-Net, or other EU-funded joint projects.

Max. 5000 Euro: Joint projects of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Max. 2500 Euro: Proposals at the European Research Council (ERC) for the ERC-sections Starting/Consolidator/Advanced/Synergy Grant (for proposal coaching and interview training)

Application Procedure

Required documents:

• Draft of the project (max. 2 pages)

• Name of the funding organization and specific programme (‘call’)

• Budget plan

The vice president for research decides about the proposals in respect to the availability of funds. The funding has to be used within 6 months after the grant. A usage list is mandatory and due within 3 months after the funding was spent. Additionally, the proposal must be turned in including a confirmation that the proposal was submitted to the funding organization.

In case a proposal is not submitted, the university can reclaim the funding from the applicant.

Please submit your proposal to Dr. Sabine Monz, monz@pvw.uni-frankfurt.de,