The specific program IDEAS provides the pan-European funding mechanism necessary to encourage and support the truly creative individuals – scientists, engineers and other researchers – who, driven by curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, are most likely to make the unpredictable and spectacular discoveries that can change the course of human understanding, as well as perhaps helping to solve some of mankind’s most enduring problems.

The European Research Council, established especially for IDEAS, will co-finance

• basic research, which is risky and at the forefront of creating new knowledge - Frontier Research
• on the basis of proposals of individual research teams  and across all research fields - Bottom-Up
• on the basis of scientific excellence after a evaluation process - Peer Review