The European Research Council proposed the rule change in response to an increasing volume of grant applications.Credit: Tom Werner/Getty
The European Research Council (ERC) has reversed a policy it introduced to help deal with a deluge of applications to its coveted awards, after a huge researcher backlash against the measure.
On 16 April the ERC, Europe’s most prestigious funder of basic research, said it would tighten restrictions on how soon researchers could reapply after failing to secure funding, to help peer reviewers to cope with growing demand and a static annual budget of around €2.3 billion (US$2.66 billion).
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But many researchers strongly opposed the changes, which might have meant some unsuccessful applicants having to wait up to 4 years before they could apply for funding again. The council’s plan was “3000% the wrong direction”, wrote Anthony Guihur, a molecular biologist at the healthcare company Labcorp, in Geneva, Switzerland, on the social media platform Bluesky. An open letter that quickly gathered more than 1,000 signatories argued that longer exclusion periods risked discouraging bold ideas and pushing talent away from Europe.
In a statement published on 29 April, the ERC scientific council, which decides the body’s funding and management strategy, said it had “listened to the concerns” of the research community and would reverse the changes.
The ERC’s swift response and willingness to listen to feedback is reassuring, says Johanna Joyce, a cancer biologist and geneticist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and one of the organizers of the open letter. “But the underlying pressure on the system remains real.”
Grant deluge
The ERC is not alone in seeing a surge in applications for grants. At least a dozen funders have seen submissions rise since 2022, which many suspect is the result of researchers using artificial intelligence models to write applications more easily.
Applications for the ERC’s Advanced Grants, for example, rose by 31% between 2024 and 2025 with a particular growth in interest from US-based researchers.
The ERC’s peer review system is struggling to handle the flood of applications. Peer review panels, which meet to evaluate proposals, have to deal with more than 250 proposals each, up from 50-150 in the past, said the council’s president Maria Leptin in a letter on 16 April.
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Despite streamlining the evaluation procedure and using “soft measures” to reduce applications, the council felt the need to introduce a more direct policy, she said. Under the new rules, researchers who received a “B” score at the first stage of the application process for any of the three main grant programmes in 2026 or 2025 would be barred from applying again in 2027, with the ban extending to 2024 for unsuccessful applicants scoring the lowest “C” grade. Until now, researchers had to wait just one year for a B score or two years for a C, before being able to apply again.
