H2020 ERC NCP project on strengthening competitiveness in ERC calls open

The European Research Council (ERC) has published a call for proposals for ERC Starting Grant under the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020. The closing date for applications is January 7, 2015. The NCP project on strengthening competitiveness in ERC calls - ERC-2016-NCP has a budget of € 850,000.  
With this call the ERC wishes to strengthen national and local support to potential ERC applicants, in particular to those from countries with weak participation in the ERC programme. Support will be given to a consortium of formally nominated ERC National Contact Points (NCPs) with a view to identifying and sharing good NCP practices and raising the general standard of support to ERC applicants, taking into account the diversity of actors and experiences. The activities will be tailored to harmonise the quality of the services provided between the more and less experienced NCPs and level the quality of support provided to ERC applicants between more and less competitive countries in the ERC’s calls. Various activities may be included, such as joint workshops, coaching, twinning/ tripling, webinars and other IT tools and fora for enhanced cross-border brokerage events, training sessions and organisation of workshops/meetings.
 
Submission of a single proposal is encouraged. The duration of the project is up to 36 months.
 
The ERC supports frontier research, cross disciplinary proposals and pioneering ideas in new and emerging fields which introduce unconventional and innovative approaches. The ERC's mission is to encourage the highest quality research in Europe through competitive funding and to support investigator-driven frontier research across all fields of research, on the basis of scientific excellence.