1.3. Broad lines of the activities

The fundamental activity of the ERC shall be to provide attractive long-term funding to support excellent investigators and their research teams to pursue ground-breaking, high-gain/high-risk research. ERC funding shall be awarded in accordance with the following well-established principles. Scientific excellence shall be the sole criterion on which ERC grants are awarded. The ERC shall operate on a 'bottom-up' basis without predetermined priorities. The ERC grants shall be open to individual teams of researchers of any age, gender, and from any country in the world, working in Europe. The ERC shall aim to foster healthy competition across Europe based on robust, transparent and impartial evaluation procedures which address, in particular, potential gender bias. The ERC shall give particular priority to assisting the best starting researchers with excellent ideas to make the transition to independence by providing adequate support at the critical stage when they are setting up or consolidating their own research team or programme. The ERC will also continue to provide appropriate levels of support for established researchers. The ERC shall also give support, as necessary, to new ways of working in the scientific world with the potential to create breakthrough results and to facilitate exploration of the commercial and social innovation potential of the research which it funds. By 2020, the ERC shall therefore aim to demonstrate that the best researchers are participating in the ERC's competitions, that ERC funding has led to scientific publications of the highest quality and to research results with high societal and economic potential impact, and that the ERC has contributed significantly to making Europe a more attractive environment for the world's best scientists. In particular, the ERC shall target a measurable improvement in the Union's share of the world's top 1 % most highly cited publications. In addition it shall aim at a substantial increase in the number of excellent researchers from outside Europe whom it funds. The ERC shall share experience and best practices with regional and national research funding agencies in order to promote the support of excellent researchers. In addition, the ERC shall further raise the visibility of its programmes. The ERC's Scientific Council shall continuously monitor the ERC's operations and evaluation procedures and consider how best to achieve its objectives by means of grant schemes that emphasise effectiveness, clarity, stability and simplicity, both for applicants and in their implementation and management, and, as necessary, to respond to emerging needs. It shall endeavour to sustain and further refine the ERC's world-class peer-review system which is based on fully transparent, fair and impartial treatment of proposals so that it can identify ground-breaking scientific excellence, breakthrough ideas and talent regardless of a researcher's gender, nationality, institution or age. Finally, the ERC shall continue conducting its own strategic studies to prepare for and support its activities, maintain close contacts with the scientific community, the regional and national funding agencies and other stakeholders and aim to make its activities complement research conducted at other levels. The ERC will ensure transparency in communication about its activities and results to the scientific community and the general public and maintain updated data from funded projects.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-03 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.