Incentive award for scientific research

Oeiras City Council, in collaboration with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, launched the Oeiras - ERC Frontier Research Incentive Awards on 24 November. With the aim of attracting and retaining talent, Oeiras Municipality intends to support projects which, despite their scientific excellence, could not be funded by the European Research Council (ERC).

The initiative, pioneer in Portugal, aims to finance projects of scientists from institutions located in Oeiras who have applied for individual ERC fellowships and who, although selected for the 2nd evaluation phase of the ERC, were unable to secure funding due to budgetary constraints of the competition.

The prize should be used to develop preliminary data and other research activities to refine the application in order to submit it again to the ERC within 3 years. Targeting researchers from all areas, the incentive will be worth up to 240,000 euros per two-year project, corresponding to a maximum of 120,000 euros per year.

Applications to the Oeiras - ERC Frontier Research Incentive Awards should take place within 10 working days of the publication of the results of the last individual ERC grant competition in a calendar year. For this purpose, the Oeiras host institutions will have to contact the Monitoring Committee, set up for this purpose, and submit a list of researchers eligible for the award, namely those who have submitted proposals that have reached stage 2 (with an A or B score) but were not funded.

Since 2007, more than 9.000 innovative projects conducted by leading researchers or with scientific leadership potential have been funded by the ERC, out of more than 65.000 applications to the most prestigious individual fellowships in Europe and globally. The average success rate is 13%, so not all projects can obtain funding.

Consult more information about Oeiras - ERC Frontier Research Incentive Awards

Consult more information on how to apply for ERC

For support in applying for ERC, contact the National Contact Points of PERIN (Portugal in Europe Research and Innovation Network)