The European Research Council (ERC) is a leading funding body at European level. It aims to support excellent investigator-driven frontier research across all fields of science. The ERC offers various outstanding funding opportunities, including grant budgets for individual scientists of up to €3.5 million. ERC calls are open to researchers around the world: all nationalities of applicants are welcome for projects carried out at a host institution in European Union member states or/and associated countries. At this session, the main features of ERC funding will be presented, including the recent changes implemented in the work programme concerning the evaluation process. Furthermore, two invited speakers, a current ERC grantee and a former member of the evaluation panel, will provide different perspectives of their experience with the ERC evaluation.