The 'Advanced Grants' from the European Research Council (ERC) were awarded in this occasion to 302 senior research leaders in 24 different countries across Europe. The European funding will allow these scientists to pursue their most ground-breaking ideas at the frontiers of knowledge together with their own teams.

€680 million in EU funding will be awarded to 302 senior research leaders in 24 different countries across Europe, in the latest competition for its prestigious 'Advanced Grants'. The projects selected cover a wide range of topics or ideas at the frontiers of knowledge.

In this Advanced Grant call, the selected candidates hold 32 different nationalities, with British, German, French, Dutch and Italian researchers being the most numerous. They will conduct their research projects in over 160 institutions across 24 different European countries. Relative to population size, the most successful researchers are based in the Netherlands, Denmark, UK and Cyprus of the EU countries, and Switzerland and Israel of the countries associated with the EU research programme. Moreover, in this call, 45% of selected proposals were in the 'Physical Science and Engineering' domain, 37% in 'Life Sciences', and 18% in 'Social Sciences and Humanities'. The grantees were selected through peer review evaluation by 25 panels composed of renowned scientists from around the world.

In total, some 2,300 applications were submitted to the ERC competition, which is a slight rise from that of the last year (4.5%). The call budget of €680 million also saw a minor increase. The number of researchers selected for funding rose slightly, from 294 to 302, while the rate of successful applications remains steady at 13%. Advanced grants are awarded to well-established top researchers of any nationality or age, who are scientifically independent and with a recent research track-record and a profile which identifies them as leaders in their respective field(s).