The agreement as a whole and its provisions are non-negotiable. Only elements important for financial and contractual management, such as reference periods and the amount of pre-financing, are negotiable to adapt to the specific administrative context of each project. In addition to the scientific report, the host institution must submit a „financial report“ at the end of each reference period. The ERC`s general grant agreement provides for different reporting periods for financial and scientific reports. Normally, the reference period is 18 months. There are four reference periods for a five-year grant; The last reference period is only six months. As part of the 2019 work programme, the ERC is implementing a comprehensive approach to the ERC`s proof of concept-grants. This means that eur 150,000 will be allocated to each successful project. There is no need to formulate a budget proposal during the submission phase. Nevertheless, the costs of the project must be described narratively in the proposal. Only costs that can benefit from an effective subsidy can be financed by the lump sum. These may include personal costs, subcontracting and other direct and indirect costs that may relate to auditing work, validating results, clarifying IPR or knowledge transfer strategy, market analysis, etc. The grant agreement is signed by the European Commission (represented by the Executive Agency of the European Research Council (ERCEA) and the host institution benefiting from the ERC grant.

For ERC projects, the Horizon 2020 ERC model grant agreement is used. If a proposal has been successfully evaluated and the Senior Auditor accepts the ERC grant, the ERC prepares an application-based grant agreement. This grant agreement offers few opportunities for adaptation. As a general rule, the agreement is non-negotiable. Other features of the ERC grant agreement relate to the ability of the senior auditor to modify his host institution (grant portability) as well as the provisions relating to the requirement for the principal auditor to invest a certain amount of his working time in the project (time obligation).