Review for ERC and Horizon Europe Proposals
Evaluators score against published criteria. Before they do, check that your objectives, work packages, deliverables, milestones and budget agree with each other, and that the text reads clearly.
$50, paid once · Refunded if you're not satisfied · PDF and Word
What a review can check in a European proposal
A Horizon Europe Part B is long, written by several partners, and assembled in the last weeks. An ERC proposal is written by one principal investigator but in two parts, read at different steps. Both drift: an objective numbered differently in the excellence and implementation sections, a deliverable due in a month no work package covers, a person-month total that differs between the text and the table, a term defined twice. The Grant Proposal Review reads the whole proposal in one pass and reports language, structure, typos and these inconsistencies, each with the passage quoted and a suggested fix. It costs $50, paid once. It does not score your proposal against the criteria, predict a result, or check the template, page limits, eligibility or the call conditions.
How ERC proposals are evaluated, as of November 2026
According to the ERC Work Programme 2025, excellence is the sole evaluation criterion for Starting, Consolidator, Advanced and Synergy grants. Panels primarily evaluate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of the research project, and also the intellectual capacity, creativity and commitment of the principal investigator. For Starting, Consolidator and Advanced grants, a single submission is followed by a two-step evaluation: at step 1 the extended synopsis and the principal investigator's CV and track record are assessed, and up to 44 proposals per panel go on to step 2, where the whole proposal is assessed. The ERC describes a revised proposal structure for Work Programme 2026 in Changes to the ERC evaluation procedures: read the work programme of your call. The Starting Grant page lists eligibility (0 to 10 years since the PhD) and funding of up to €1.5 million for five years.
A consequence for the text: what the panel reads at step 1 has to stand on its own, and what it reads at step 2 must not contradict it.
How Horizon Europe proposals are scored
The General Annexes of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 set three award criteria for research and innovation actions and innovation actions: Excellence, Impact, and Quality and efficiency of the implementation. For full applications, each criterion is scored out of 5, with a threshold of 3 per criterion and an overall threshold of 10. For innovation actions, the Impact score is weighted 1.5 for ranking. In two-stage calls, the first stage is scored on Excellence and Impact only, with a threshold of 4 for each. Your call's conditions can differ: check them.
The implementation criterion includes the quality and effectiveness of the work plan and the appropriateness of the effort assigned to work packages. Work packages, deliverables, milestones and effort figures that contradict each other are the inconsistencies the review is built to find.
Before you submit
1. Read the call conditions
The work programme, the General Annexes and the proposal template set the page limits, the sections and the criteria. Check them against your draft yourself.
2. Freeze a full draft
Part B with its tables, in one file. The consistency checks need the whole text.
3. Upload and pay once
$50, paid through Stripe before the review starts, whatever the length, up to 400 pages.
4. Send the findings to the partners concerned
Each finding quotes the passage, so the partner who wrote it can find it.
5. Ask your National Contact Point
For questions on the call, the template and eligibility, the National Contact Point in your country is the source. A text review is not.
What the review covers in a European proposal
Objectives against the work plan
Objectives numbered or worded differently between sections, or with no work package that delivers them.
Deliverables and milestones
Due months, numbers and titles that differ between the text, the tables and the timeline.
Effort and budget figures
Person-months, costs and totals that do not agree across the proposal.
Terms and partners
Acronyms, partner names and key terms written or used two ways.
Language and typos
Clarity, vague claims, spelling and punctuation, in the language the proposal is written in.
What it does not do
No score against the criteria, no check of the template, page limits or eligibility, no rewrite.
Review for ERC and Horizon Europe Proposals questions
No. It gives no score and no prediction, and it does not simulate evaluators. It reports language, structure, typos and inconsistencies, which affect how clearly the evaluators can see what you propose.