European Commission. Annual report on the ERC activities and achievements in 2014. Publications Office of the European Commission, Brussels, 2015. ISBN 978-92-9215-029-7. Pages: 104. 

The European Research Council (ERC) was created under the 2007-2013 European Communities framework programme for research and development. 2014 was the ERC’s first year under Horizon 2020, the framework programme set up by the European Commission for the support of research and innovation over the period 2014-2020. Notably, the ERC’s budget in Horizon 2020 is EUR 13.1 billion over a period of seven years, which represents around 17 % of the entire Horizon 2020 budget.

Composed of an independent Scientific Council and a dedicated implementation structure in the form of an Executive Agency (ERCEA), the ERC has rapidly gained wide recognition as a world-class research funding agency and has attained an excellent reputation within the scientific community across Europe and worldwide. This Annual Report covers the activities of the European Research Council (ERC) in 2014, the year in which three more of its leading minds became Nobel laureates and two Fields medallists. The report includes research highlights of 2014 and an outlook of 2015.