ERC Synergy Grant 2026

Call open: 10 July, 2025

Call deadline: 5 November, 2025

USI deadline: 1 September, 2025

ERC Synergy Grants (SyG) fund frontier, interdisciplinary research by supporting teams of 2 to 4 Principal Investigators (PIs) who jointly address ambitious research problems that cannot be tackled individually. Projects must demonstrate the added value of the synergistic collaboration.

Eligibility

• A group of 2- 4 PIs, each bringing complementary skills.
• Each PI must have a competitive track record relative to their career stage.
• The team of PIs can involve 1 or more researchers based in CH, provided the team involves at least 1 PI based in a EU Member State or Associated Country.
• No specific eligibility criteria with respect to the academic requirements are foreseen.

Funding and duration

Up to € 10M for a period of 6 years (pro rata for projects of shorter duration) with extra €4M possible for start-up costs, major equipment or facilities. Budget covers 100% of the project costs including 25% OHs. Funding is awarded as real costs.

Success rate

Synergy Grants have a success rate of around 10%.

USI internal deadline

Internal and external applicants, who want to apply with USI as thier host, must notify thier expression of interest to Research Service by 1 September, 2025 including:

• CV;
• composition of the team of PIs (name & host institutions);
• provisional abstract and title of the project.

More information
ERC Synergy grant website

Contact
Sara Caspani, Research service