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Grant eligibility checker
Pubrica’s free grant eligibility checker tests the career-stage, host-country and consortium rules for eight schemes from the ERC, Horizon Europe, NIH, Wellcome and ICMR. Each answer is shown with the published rule and the date it was checked, so you can confirm eligibility before preparing a proposal.
The tool runs in your browser. No registration, email address or file upload is required, and the formula, reference or assessment criteria used are shown with the result.
- Runs in your browser
- Nothing uploaded or stored
- No email asked for
- Method shown with the answer
- Sources dated
The Tool
Check Your Eligibility for Research Funding Schemes
Checks career-stage, host-country and consortium eligibility rules for eight funding schemes, with the published rule shown beside each answer.
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Checks career-stage, host-country and consortium eligibility rules for eight funding schemes, with the published rule shown beside each answer.
ERC · Horizon Europe · NIH · Wellcome · ICMRMeets the published criteria
On these two criteria you are inside the Starting Grant window for the 2027 call.
For the 2027 Starting Grant call the window was widened: the PhD must have been awarded more than 0 and up to 10 years before 1 January 2027 — a defence between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2026. The familiar 2–7 year rule belonged to the 2026 call and no longer applies.
Extensions to the window are granted and are not discretionary: 18 months per child for maternity, the documented period for paternity or parental leave, documented long-term illness or national service over 90 days, clinical training up to four years, and periods of inability to work following disaster, displacement or violence.
Sources and date. Read off the funders’ own documents in September 2026: the ERC Work Programme 2027, the Horizon Europe general annexes for 2026–27, the NIH ESI policy pages and the Parent R01 notice, Wellcome’s scheme pages, and the ICMR extramural research guidelines. Three of these moved during 2026 — both ERC career windows widened for the 2027 calls, NIH restructured international collaboration, and Wellcome’s geographic eligibility narrows on 29 October 2026 — so treat this as a first filter and read the call text before you commit six weeks to writing.
Limitations
What This Tool Does Not Cover
Use the result as a starting point. These are the situations in which it needs specialist review.
The lookups
Limitations of the guideline and funder lookups
Reporting guidelines and funder rules move without much warning — CONSORT and SPIRIT both changed in 2025, TRIPOD in 2024, and two ERC career windows widened for the 2027 calls. Each of those tools carries the date its sources were last read and names them. Check the EQUATOR Network or the call text before you rely on it, and check the journal’s own instructions too, because they sometimes still name a retired version.
Method
Methods and Sources
The calculation or reference set behind this tool. The result panel also shows the formula or criteria used.
Funder rules
Read September 2026
The ERC Work Programme 2027, the Horizon Europe general annexes for 2026–27, the NIH Early Stage Investigator policy and Parent R01 notice, Wellcome’s scheme pages, and the ICMR extramural research guidelines.
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