In July, the European Research Council (ERC) announced its biggest ever annual injection of funding in blue-sky research. €2.2 billion will be made available in 2020 to support some 1100 top researchers. As in previous years, most of the funding (61%) is earmarked for early- to mid-career scientists and scholars. The funding will also support jobs for an estimated 8,000 postdoctoral researchers, PhD students and other research staff employed in ERC-funded teams. More information available here and here.