Under the title “A Strong ERC for a Leading Europe”, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) and the German Science and Humanities Council (WR) hosted a joint evening event in Brussels on 3 March 2026 at the Representation of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia to the European Union. At the event, the three organisations presented a new concept, “Nexus – Networks of Excellence”(Download), for the funding of European excellence networks.

Nexus is designed to support networks of excellence, bringing together at least three universities or research organisations, ideally from three different countries, to collaborate over the long term on a jointly selected research topic. The objective is to connect Europe’s distributed excellence more systematically, enabling critical mass for scientific breakthroughs and enhancing the global visibility of leading European research. In a pilot phase, up to 20 such networks could receive funding of €20 million each per year over a period of seven years, based on principles of research excellence, thematic openness and science-driven selection procedures.

During the event, DFG President Katja Becker, HRK President Walter Rosenthal and Wolfgang Wick, Chair of the German Science and Humanities Council, discussed current challenges facing the European Research Council (ERC) and its potential role in implementing new funding formats. They were joined by ERC President Maria Leptin, Krzysztof Jóźwiak, Director of the Polish National Science Centre (NCN), and Manuel Aleixo from the Cabinet of EU Commissioner for Research Ekaterina Zaharieva. In addition to the Nexus proposal, the Polish NCN presented a concept for collaborative research within the ERC as well, with a particular focus on institutions from widening countries.

President Becker highlighted the ERC as a cornerstone of curiosity-driven frontier research in Europe. Since its establishment in 2007, the ERC has enabled scientific breakthroughs with far-reaching impact, ranging from foundational work on mRNA technologies to the first image of a black hole and numerous patented innovations. Against this backdrop, the DFG, HRK and WR consider the ERC the most suitable institutional framework for implementing an instrument such as Nexus, as it could build on its established evaluation and decision-making structures. 

In the context of the ongoing negotiations on FP10, President Becker also underlined the importance of an adequate financial envelope for the ERC. While the European Commission’s planned budget increase for the next Framework Programme sends an important signal, the ERC grant levels have not been adjusted for inflation for nearly two decades. A real increase is therefore overdue. At the same time, new instruments such as Nexus would require additional funding beyond the existing ERC budget. Maria Leptin emphasised that such formats would depend on a substantial and sustainably secured increase in funding, as well as strengthened administrative capacities.

President Becker also cautioned against proposed changes to the governance of the ERC that could undermine its scientific independence, including the possible shortening of the ERC President’s term of office. Manuel Aleixo, however, noted that key governance issues remain open in the ongoing legislative process and could still be revisited in the course of negotiations. At the same time, he signalled openness to structural adjustments in other parts of the future Framework Programme. In particular, the second pillar of FP10, and the collaborative research it supports, could be further developed, for example through a stronger integration of bottom-up elements. The DFG, HRK and WR stressed that, should Nexus be implemented outside the ERC, it would be essential to fully preserve core ERC principles: research excellence as the sole selection criterion, bottom-up selection of research topics and the independence of evaluation and decision-making processes.

There was broad agreement that the ERC occupies a unique position within the European research funding landscape. Compared to many national schemes, strictly science-driven programme design, evaluation and selection procedures are widely seen as a key factor in its success. At the same time, participants pointed to the sharp rise in the number of excellent proposals and the resulting low success rates as a major operational challenge. A significant share of outstanding research projects currently remains unfunded for purely budgetary reasons.