The Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), together with the Universidad de Burgos (UBU), organised an information and training session at the Escuela Politécnica Superior of the UBU focused on the funding schemes of the European Research Council (ERC), one of the European Union’s main instruments to support frontier research and excellence.

María Martinón, Director of CENIEH, underlined the strategic relevance of the ERC and stressed the importance of supporting and channelling existing talent and brilliant ideas so that they can become truly transformative projects through substantial financial backing. She also highlighted that the joint work of the UBU and CENIEH has created a fruitful, collaborative and stimulating research ecosystem in Burgos, with a significant increase over the last five years in the number of projects supported by this type of funding, confirming the ability to attract talent.

Verónica Calderón, Vice-Rector for Research, Knowledge Transfer and Innovation at the UBU, described these highly competitive grants as an institutionally critical programme and a cornerstone of excellent science, encouraging researchers to apply and compete successfully at the highest European level.

Such sessions aim to identify and assess innovative, sometimes risky and ground-breaking, multidisciplinary and transnational ideas that may have a future impact in any field of knowledge.

During the session, experts from the Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT) presented key aspects of the application process, the different funding schemes and the evaluation criteria applied.

Successful case studies were also shared by Nohemi Sala Burgos and Leslea J. Hlusko, from CENIEH, and Cristina Eugenia Valdiosera Morales and Andrés Díaz Portugal, from the UBU, who discussed their experience in securing ERC funding.

The event coincided with the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. In this context, both Verónica Calderón and María Martinón emphasised the need to further strengthen the presence of women in research, particularly in project leadership roles.

(ERC) Work Programme 2026

The European Research Council provides long-term funding to support excellent researchers and their teams in pursuing high-risk, high-gain research in any field, with scientific excellence as the sole evaluation criterion.

It is open to independent researchers of any age, nationality and career stage who wish to carry out their research projects in a public or private host organisation.

There are three individual grant schemes (Starting, Consolidator and Advanced Grants), one for groups (Synergy Grant), a Proof of Concept scheme and the new ERC Plus Grant offering up to €7 million over seven years.