Funding for Eligible ERC Applications - Application by Invitation Only

Only approved Norwegian research organisations are eligible to apply. See the list of approved research organisations.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner 

The research organisation listed as the Project Owner in the application form must have approved the submission of the application. 

Requirements relating to the project manager and the ERC application 

• You must have submitted an application to ERC-2025-StG or ERC-2025-CoG as a Principal Investigator and received an A as a grade in stage 2. 
• The application has not received funding from the ERC. 
• The application was sent to the ERC with a Norwegian host institution. 

The Project Manager must be employed by the Project Owner. 

Requirements relating to partners 

Approved Norwegian research organisations and similar foreign organisations may participate as partners in the project and receive funding. 

Scope of support 

You can apply for up to the same amount as you applied to the ERC for. When you convert from euro to Norwegian kroner, you use the euro exchange rate that you can find at the European Central Bank for the day that was the deadline for your ERC application, 15 October 2024 for StG 2025 and 14 January 2025 for CoG 2025.  

If the Project Owner contributed self-funded positions in the ERC application, these must also be included as self-funded positions in the application to the Research Council. 

Filling in the budget tables 

You must adjust the budget that you had in your ERC application so that it fits into the Research Council's budget tables. You must specify the expenses in the application form, even if you must attach a copy of the budget you submitted to the ERC. 

We require that you break down the project budget into the following cost types in your application: 

• Payroll and indirect expenses, related to researcher time (including research fellowship positions and the project manager's position) at the research organisations participating in the project. For doctoral scholarships, the support is limited to three full-time equivalents. For postdoctoral fellowships, the support is limited to a minimum of three years and a maximum of four years. See also our website about postdoctoral research fellowship positions and doctoral research fellowship positions.  
• other operating expenses, which are costs for other activities that are necessary to carry out the project's R&D activities. Any purchases from subcontractors must be entered here. All costs entered as "other operating expenses" must be specified in the application.  
• equipment, which includes operating and depreciation costs for scientific equipment necessary to carry out the project  

The cost type procurement of R&D services shall not be used.  

You can find detailed and important information about what to enter in the project budget on the website.  

Prerequisites for the award of funding 

The project will be carried out as described in the application submitted to the ERC. 

The project must start between 1 May 2026 and 1 February 2027. The latest permitted project completion date is 31 January 2032. 

In addition, you must be aware of the following if you should receive an award from us: 

• The Research Council's prerequisites for awards can also be found in our general terms and conditions for R&D projects on the information page What the contract involves.  
• The project manager and the Project Owner must have assessed and handled the consideration of research security in the project. Research security refers to risks associated with unwanted transfer of knowledge and technology, impact on research and innovation, or breaches of research ethics/integrity where knowledge and technology are used to undermine key societal values.  
• Grant recipients in research organisations and the public sector (Project Owners and partners) must have action plans for gender equality (GEPs) available on their websites. This must be in place before the contract is signed for projects with grants from us. The requirement does not apply to the private sector, interest groups or the voluntary sector.  
• The Research Council requires full and immediate open access for scientific articles, see Plan S - open access to publications.  
• For all projects that handle data, the Project Owner must prepare a data management plan in connection with the revised application, where you will find more information about the requirements for data management plans in projects that receive funding from us.  
• For medical and health studies involving humans, the Research Council sets special requirements and guidelines for prospective registration of studies and publication of results.  

In an attachment to the application, you must state whether you have submitted a new ERC application with the same content to a 2026 call. If your application is awarded funding under this call, and you are granted funding from the ERC for a similar application, the Research Council will require you to choose between funding from the ERC and the Research Council. We will follow up on this when the results from the ERC are published in August (ERC-2026-StG) and December (ERC-2026-CoG) 2027. 

If you have received funding from the Research Council during 2025 or 2026 for an application that overlaps with the content of your ERC application from 2025, the amount you may be granted under this call will be reduced.

You can change and submit the application several times until the application deadline. We recommend that you submit your application as soon as you have completed the application form and uploaded the required attachments. When the application deadline expires, it is the version of the application that was submitted most recently that we process. 

• The application and all attachments must be written in English. 
• All attachments must be in PDF format. 

Mandatory attachments 

• Project description. This must consist of the B1 and B2 parts of the application to the ERC, collected in one PDF document. 
• CV for project manager. You can either use the Research Council's template, or send the CV+ Track Record that you sent to the ERC. 
• PDF copy of part "3 – Budget", from Part A of the submitted ERC application. 
• Response letter from the ERC to the application, with the panel's and peers' assessments. 
• Attachment stating whether you have submitted a new application to the ERC for a 2026 call or whether you have received funding from the Research Council for parts of the content of the ERC application. 

Applications that do not meet the requirements above will be rejected. 

It is not necessary to submit documentation of a PhD degree, documentation of deductions for academic age or a letter from the host institution. 

All attachments to the application must be submitted with the application. We do not accept attachments submitted after the application deadline unless we have requested additional documentation. 

We will not consider documents and websites linked to in the application, or attachments other than those specified above. Be careful to upload the correct attachment type, as there are no technical restrictions on what kind of templates it is possible to upload in the application form. 

Applications will be processed administratively, as the ERC panels have assessed the ERC application in the relevant call. The Research Council will carry out an administrative assessment of the budget in the application. 

The ERC does not make a ranking of applications that have received an A in stage 2, but have been rejected because the budget was exhausted. We will therefore use randomised selection among those who submit applications for this call. 

The Research Council may reject applications where the Project Owner or partner has materially breached its obligations in other projects funded by the Research Council in the two years prior to the submission of the application. 

The application may be rejected if the project manager has been appointed to the Joint Integrity Committee or the Investigation Committee in the last two years prior to the submission of the application. 

We expect to publish which applications will be awarded in May 2026.