EACR – Mark Foundation –
Pezcoller Foundation
Rising Star Award
Open to EACR members with an unfunded Score ‘A’ cancer-related project from the ERC Starting Grant calls of the current year.
The awardee will receive funding ofup to €100.000 to begin their project. Institutional overheads of 10% will be added to this amount.
The award is intended to enable the progression of excellent cancer research by bridging the period before re-submission to the ERC.
Applicants must have an unfunded Score ‘A’ cancer-related project from the annual ERC Starting Grant calls. The ERC defines Score ‘A’ as “Fully meets the ERC excellence criterion and is recommended for funding if sufficient funds are available”.
The awardee will be invited to accept their award, and to give a talk at the EACR Annual Congress (June) and also at the Pezcoller Foundation in Trento, Italy, at a date to be agreed (Autumn).
The winner of the 2026 EACR-Mark Foundation-Pezcoller Foundation Rising Star Award Dr. Kirschenbaum
HOW TO APPLY
Documents to sent as a single PDF to catherine.burns@eacr.org:
- Completed Application Form
- Concise curriculum vitae (CV) 1 page maxmimum
- A copy of your ‘B1’ ERC Starting Grant application
- Confirmation of your unfunded 2026 Score ‘A’ cancer-related project. Please include the first page of your Evaluation Report, and the ERC letter confirming that you have not been awarded funding.
The 2027 Rising Star Award application deadline: 2026, 14 October at 23:59 CEST.
For more information and the application form, visit www.eacr.org/rising-star-award.
PAST WINNERS
2025 - Marta Kovatcheva
IFOM, Milano
2024 - Stamatis Papathanasiou
Institute of Molecular Biology, Mainz, Germania
2023 - Isidro Cortés-Ciriano
EMBL-EBI, Cambridge, Regno Unito