UK-based researchers top the latest round of Horizon’s ERC 2025 Consolidator Grants
EU-funded projects based in the UK will cover a wide range of topics from cancer to space debris, quantum photonics to politics. The full list of the winners is available here.
The remaining 283 beneficiaries are based in Germany (58 grants), the Netherlands (40 grants) and Spain (26 grants).
The ERC supports cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, from life sciences and physics to social sciences and humanities. These grants are part of Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation programme to which the UK associated on 1 January 2024.
ERC Consolidator grants are open to researchers with 7-12 years of experience since completion of PhD, a scientific track record showing great promise and an excellent research proposal.
Consolidator Grant holders may be awarded up to €2 million for a period of 5 years. An additional €1 million can be made available to cover further eligible costs (e.g. start-up costs, major equipment, access to large facilities, major experimental and field work costs) when these are necessary to carry out the proposed work. For Principal Investigators currently based in non-associated third countries re-locating to the EU or an Associated Country to take up their ERC grant, the maximum additional funding may be up to €2 million.
In September, the ERC awarded €760m in Starting Grants to young researchers, with 60 UK-based scientists winning €90m to work on cutting-edge projects — making the UK the second-biggest beneficiary after Germany. The funding helps the researchers pursue bold ideas in fields ranging from climate change and quantum computing to mental health and migration.
In June, the ERC announced its Advanced Grants beneficiaries. The UK was by far the biggest beneficiary of the 2025 round of Advanced Grants. Fifty-six (20%) out of the total of 281 projects which were funded were UK based. Of these 56 researchers, almost half (23) came from the EU. The Advanced Grant competition is one of the most prestigious and competitive funding schemes in the EU. It gives senior researchers the opportunity to pursue ambitious, curiosity-driven projects that could lead to major scientific breakthroughs. The Advanced Grants can go up to €2.5 million.
The ERC published its 2026 Work Programme on 8 July 2025. The next deadlines for application are 13 January 2026 for the Consolidator Grants and 27 August 2026 for the Advanced Grants.
The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It supports researchers of any nationality and age to run projects based across Europe. The ERC offers four core grant schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants and Synergy Grants. With its additional Proof of Concept grant scheme, the ERC helps grantees to bridge the gap between their pioneering research and early phases of its commercialisation. The ERC is led by an independent governing body, the Scientific Council. Since November 2021, Maria Leptin is the President of the ERC. The overall ERC budget from 2021 to 2027 is more than €16 billion, as part of the Horizon Europe programme.
Horizon Europe is the biggest international research and innovation programme in the world with more than £82 billion (€95.5 billion) of funding available over seven years (2021 to 2027) from the EU budget, to which all associated countries are adding further contributions.
Questions & Answers on the UK’s association to Horizon Europe can be found here, as well as in this FAQ
Joint statement by the European Commission and the UK Government on the UK's association to Horizon Europe and Copernicus
UK association to Horizon Europe
