European Research Council - ERC
The European Research Council consists of a Scientific Council (which sets up the strategy to foster research excellence) and an Executive Agency (which implements it). The ERC Executive Agency is the administrative organism of the ERC. It manages the awards of ERC grants.
The main aim is to stimulate scientific excellence by supporting and encouraging the very best, truly creative scientists, engineers and scholars to be adventurous and take risks in their research. The ERC funds investigator-led frontier research. ERC funding schemes include for example Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants, Synergy Grants and Proof of Concept.
The ERC is independent of the European Commission though it received its funds as part of the Framework Programmes.
