Post by ShanghaiRanking

📊ERC Proof of Concept Grants 2026: Technology Universities Lead and France has taken a different path European Research Council (ERC) announced on June 30 the recipients of its first round of 2026 Proof of Concept (PoC) Grants. A total of €27.3 million was awarded to 182 researchers across 21 countries, with each grant worth €150,000. 78 universities shared 128 of these grants. Delft University of Technology led all institutions with five grants — the maximum any single university achieved. This continues a multi-year pattern of Dutch engineering dominance in the PoC scheme. Technische Universität Wien matched TU Delft with five grants of its own. For a single Austrian university to share the top spot with Europe's elite engineering schools is a remarkable result. DTU - Technical University of Denmark claimed four grants, enough for a share of third place. Denmark as a whole earned six grants — DTU accounted for four of them, underlining its central role in the country's research pipeline. Technical University of Munich also earned four grants, tying for third. TUM is the only German institution in the four-grant tier, and its four projects make up a fifth of Germany's university-hosted total. The sole non-tech institution in the top five, Utrecht University, also delivered an impressive showing with four grants — matching DTU and TUM project for project. 🤔Data reflect something quite interesting: 🇮🇹Italy and 🇫🇷France both won 18 grants, but from opposite ends of the spectrum. Italy is university-led: 14 at universities, four elsewhere. France is the mirror image: only two of its 18 grants sit at universities. The other 16 live in CNRS, INSERM, and CEA labs. And CNRS received the highest number of awarded grants across all types of institutions with 6 projects. 🤗What do you think about that? Welcome to discuss in comment. #ERC #TechTransfer #ResearchToImpact #HigherEd #EuropeanResearch #UniversityRankings #Innovation #SciencePolicy #FrontierResearch