ERC Proof of Concept Grant

The ERC Proof of Concept funding is made available only to those who already have an ERC award to establish proof of concept of an idea that was generated in the course of their ERC-funded projects. Frontier research often generates radically new ideas that drive innovation and business inventiveness and tackle societal challenges. The ERC PoC Grants aim at facilitating exploration of the commercial and social innovation potential of ERC funded research and are therefore available only to PIs whose proposals draw substantially on their ERC funded research. Proof of Concept Grants aim at maximising the value of the excellent research that the ERC funds, by funding further work (i.e. activities which were not scheduled to be funded by the original ERC frontier research grant) to verify the innovation potential of ideas arising from ERC funded projects. The objective is to enable ERC-funded ideas to progress on the path from ground-breaking research towards innovation. Proof of Concept Grant would help among others: testing, experimenting, demonstrating and validating the idea; conducting research required to carry out the above activities and to address the weaknesses uncovered by them; establishing viability, technical issues and overall direction; clarifying IPR protection or knowledge transfer strategy; involving industrial partners, societal or cultural organisations, policymakers or any other potential stakeholder supporting the translation of research results into innovation; assessing potential “end users” of the expected innovation.