Set up in 2007 by the European Union, the European Research Council (ERC) aims to stimulate scientific excellence in Europe by encouraging competition for funding between the very best, creative researchers of any nationality and age from anywhere in the world. As part of Horizon 2020, the EU programme for research and innovation for 2014 to 2020, the ERC has a total budget of over €13 billion. The ERC has an 'investigator-driven', 'bottom-up' approach, which allows researchers to identify new opportunities in any field of research (Physical Sciences and Engineering, Life Sciences and Social Sciences and Humanities). On the sole basis of excellence, the ERC provides attractive long-term funding to individual top scientists and their teams to pursue ground-breaking research. The funded projects are expected to lead to scientific advances and to set clear and inspirational targets for frontier research across the world. By supporting the brightest minds, the ERC grants help to bring about new and unpredictable scientific and technological discoveries in Europe.