│ 1

European Research Council

The ERC:

Funding Opportunities and

the Evaluation Process

Dr Alejandro Martin-Hobdey

Head of Unit

Scientific Management Department

Zagreb

│ 2

Outline

What do we offer?

Funding schemes, opportunities

The Evaluation Procedure

How to prepare and submit a grant proposal

│ 3 │ 3 │ 3

What is special about the ERC?

• All fields of science and scholarship are eligible

• Investigator-driven, bottom-up

• Scientific Excellence is the only criterion

• Individual team + research project

• Irrespective of nationality, gender or age of researchers

• Attractive grants

• Significant, flexible grants, up to five years

• Under full control of the Principal Investigator

• Independent individual teams in Europe

• All nationalities can apply

• Host organisation to be located in EU or Associated

Country

│ 4

Starting Grants

starters (2-7 years after PhD) up

to € 2.0 Mio for 5 years

Advanced Grants track-record of

significant research achievements in the last 10 years

up to € 3.5 Mio

for 5 years

Proof-of-Concept bridging gap between research - earliest stage of marketable

innovation up to €150,000 for ERC grant holders

ERC Grant schemes

Consolidator Grants

consolidators (7-12 years after PhD) up

to € 2.75 Mio for 5 years

│ 5

Extensions of eligibility window possible for StG and

CoG for documented situations of:

• Maternity – 18 months per child

• Paternity – effective time taken off

• Military service

• Medical specialty training

• No limit to the total extension

Extensions of eligibility window

│ 6

Researchers career development

and complementary funding schemes

Post-docs

Senior Professor

Students

Post Graduates

Junior Professor/ Junior Researcher

Associated Professor

Full Professor

Erasmus

Marie Curie

ERC AdG - Advanced

ERC StG - Starters

ERC CoG – Consolidators

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ERC offers independence, recognition & visibility

• to work on a research topic of own choice, with a team of own choice

• to gain true financial autonomy for 5 years

• to negotiate with the host institution the best conditions of work

• to attract top team members (EU and non-EU) and collaborators

• to move with the grant to any place in Europe if necessary (portability

of grants)

• to attract additional funding and gain recognition

• ERC is a quality label

Creative research freedom of the

individual ERC grantee

│ 8

Applicant legal entity: institution that engages and hosts

the PI for the duration of the project (25% overheads to HI)

Any type of legal entity: universities, research centres,

business research units … as long as it is in MS or AC

Commitment of HI: to ensure that the PI may

- apply for funding independently

- manage research and funding for the project

- publish independently as senior author

- have access to reasonable space and facilities

Host institution

│ 9 │ 9 │ 9

ERC Evaluation process (StG, CoG & AdG)

Panel structure : 3 domains and 25 panels

Each panel : Panel Chair and 10-15 Panel Members

Life Sciences (LS) 9

LS1 Molecular & Structural Biology &

Biochemistry

LS2 Genetics, Genomics, Bioinformatics &

Systems Biology

LS3 Cellular & Developmental Biology

LS4 Physiology, Pathophysiology &

Endocrinology

LS5 Neurosciences & Neural disorders

LS6 Immunity & Infection

LS7 Diagnostic Tools, Therapies & Public health

LS8 Evolutionary, Population & Environmental

Biology

LS9 Applied Life Sciences & Non-Medical

Biotechnology

Social Sciences and Humanities (SH) 6

SH1 Markets, Individuals & Institutions

SH2 The Social World, Diversity & Common Ground

SH3 Environment, Space & Population

SH4 The Human Mind and its Complexity

SH5 Cultures & Cultural Production

SH6 The Study of the Human Past

Physical Sciences & Engineering (PE) 10

PE1 Mathematics

PE2 Fundamental Constituents of Matter

PE3 Condensed Matter Physics

PE4 Physical & Analytical Chemical sciences

PE5 Synthetic Chemistry & Materials

PE6 Computer Science & Informatics

PE7 Systems & Communication Engineering

PE8 Products & Process Engineering

PE9 Universe Sciences

PE10 Earth System Science

│ 10 │ 10

ERC Evaluation process : Submission of

proposals

Single submission

• one deadline per Call

• to a targeted panel of your choice

• electronically only

• proposals have two parts:

• Part A: administrative forms

• Part B: scientific proposal itself (pdf)

• Step 1: Look at only Part B1

• Step 2: Look at Part B1 + B2

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Remote assessment by Panel members of section 1 – Synopsis and PI

Panel meeting

Proposals retained for step 2

STEP 1

Remote assessment by Panel members and reviewers of full proposals

Panel meeting + interview (StG+ CoG)

Ranked list of proposals

STEP 2

Redress

Evaluation of proposals Evaluation procedure

Feedback to applicants

│ 12 │ 12

PART A – online forms

A1 Proposal and PI info

A2 Host Institution info

A3 Budget

PART B1 – submitted as .pdf

Extended Synopsis 5 pages

CV 2 p.

Track Record 2 p.

Annexes – submitted as .pdf

• Statement of support of HI

• copy of PhD or equiv. (StG & CoG)

If applicable:

• document for extension of eligibility

window (StG & CoG)

• explanatory information on ethical

issues

PART B2 – submitted as .pdf

Scientific Proposal 15 p.

(incl. budget table)

Submission of proposals Proposal structure

│ 13 │ 13

Excellence as sole criterion, to apply to:

Research Project

Ground breaking nature

Potential impact

Scientific Approach

Principle Investigator (PI)

Intellectual capacity

Creativity

Evaluation Criteria

│ 14 │ 14

• Panel members: typically 600 PMs

involved per call

High-level scientists

Recruited by ScC from all over the world

About 10-15 members plus chair person

• Remote Referees: typically 2000 / call

Each evaluate only a small number of

proposals

Other

(7%)

Who evaluates the proposals ?

(7%)

USA

│ 15

ERC panel members by country of HI and

gender ERC Starting, Consolidator and Advanced grant calls 2007 - 2013

531

494

425

309

199

193

170

136

134

120

109

99

86

67

64

48

37

15

10

8

8

6

6

6

5

2

223

85

60

29

11

4

1

318

33

24

14

10

6

5

3

3

2

2

2

2

1

1

1

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

UK

DE

FR IT NL

ES

SE

BE

AT

DK FI

PL

HU

PT

CZ

EL IE

RO

SK

BG

CY

HR LT SI

EE

LU

CH IL

NO

TR

RS IS

MK

US

CA

JP

AU

HK

RU

CL

CU

TW AR IN SA

UA

BR

MX

ZA

EU Associatecountries

International

# p

an

el m

em

bers

/pan

el

ch

air

s

ERC StG, CoG, AdG panel members 2007-2013 by host institution country

Total

M (74 %)

F (26 %)

│ 16

Panel meeting – Step 1 Scoring

Result of Step 1:

A. Proposal is of sufficient quality to pass to Step 2

of the evaluation

B. Proposal is of high quality but not sufficient to

pass to Step 2 of the evaluation

C. Proposal is not of sufficient quality to pass to

Step 2 of the evaluation

│ 16

│ 17

Feedback to applicants

Step 2 results

Result of Step 2:

A. Proposal fully meets the ERC's excellence criterion and

is recommended for funding if sufficient funds are

available

B. Proposal meets some but not all elements of the ERC's

excellence criterion and will not be funded

At the end of both steps, applicants will be informed

about the ranking range of their proposal out of all

proposals evaluated by the panel

│ 17

│ 18

Resubmission restrictions

│ 18

• Ever increasing number of applications causes low

success rates and high panel workload

• New for 2014 call applicants:

• those who receive a B (Step 1 or Step 2) have to

wait out one year

• those who receive a C will have to wait out two

years

│ 19 │ 19

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 83

# s

ub

mis

sio

ns

age of applications

ADG 2013

COG 2013

STG 2013

ERC StG, CoG, AdG 2013

Age of applicants at call publication date

│ 20

Age of StG, CoG & AdG grantees

From StG 2007-2013 (incl CoG) & AdG

2008-2013

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

222426283032343638404244464850525456586062646668707274

# f

un

ded

PIs

Age of grantees at call publication date

Age of grantees 2007-2013 inc COG

ADG 2008-2013

STG 2007-2013 incl COG

│ 21 │ 21

StG 2012 - 2013

Years past PhD

│ 21

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Fin

al su

ccess r

ate

# f

un

ded

pro

po

sals

Yrs passed phd on call publication date

funded 2012 (263) funded 2013 (300)

SR 2012 (13.7 %) SR 2013 (9.2 %)

│ 22

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

18%

20%

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Su

ccess r

ate

by a

ge a

t call

p

ub

lic

ati

on

da

te

# f

un

ded

pro

po

sals

age at call publication date

funded 2012 funded 2013 SR age 2012 SR age 2013

StG 2012 - 2013

Funded proposals by age (at call publication date)

│ 23 │ 23

ERC performance

Grant distribution per HI country, StG 2013

f

60

46

32 29

26 21

14 12 8 8 8

5 4 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

UK DE IL FR NL CH ES BE AT IT SE PT FI NO EL HU IE CY CZ HR PL TR

Nu

mb

er

of

gra

nte

es

Country of host institution

Mobility - Incoming and staying grantees (287 proposals)

Grantee moving to the country - all nationalities

Grantee staying in the country - "non-European"

Grantee staying in the country - "European"

Grantee in the country - nationals of the country

│ 24 │ 24

StG 2013 Proposals for funding

Applicant Nationality – applicant in own

country

-22

-3 -3 -2 -5

-10

-5

-13

-2 -3 -6 -4 -2 -1 -1 -3 -3 -3 -1 -3 -2 -3 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1

33 31

23 20

16

7 9 10

4 2

4 4 4 1 1 2 1 1 1 2

-30

-20

-10

0

10

20

30

40

DE IL

FR

UK

NL IT ES

US

BE

CH

CA

EL

PT FI

SE

CZ

TR

AU IE IN PL

RU

AT

HR

HU

AR

BR

BY

CY

DK

EC

MK

PK

SG

Nu

mb

er

of

Gra

nte

es

Grantee nationality

National in country

National abroad

│ 25

Relation with National Agencies II

│ 25

Some funding agencies uses ERC evaluation results in support research

National initiatives

in support of

finalist projects

in the ERC calls

A new partnership between

National Funding Councils

and ERC

BE Flanders: FWO supports the best ranked PIs on the ERC-StG reserve list

CY: Research Promotion Foundation supported StG 2009 finalists

FI: support scheme for finalists in reserve lists since 2009 calls

FR: ANR launched an initiative to support unfunded StG2007 finalists

HU: Call for unfunded ERC finalists of StG2007 and StG2009

IE: New scheme opening in 2012. Previous scheme for StG2007 finalists

IT: Call open to all unfunded StG2007 finalists

LU: FNR supports unfunded StG and AdG finalists since 2009 calls

NO: The Research Council supports unfunded StG finalists

SI: Complementary scheme for unfunded finalists of 2010 calls

ES: support for unfunded finalists of StG calls since 2007

CH: SNSF launched an initiative to back unfunded StG2007 finalists

TR: Considers a scheme to support unfunded ERC finalists

PL: Support scheme for finalists of 2009 and 2010 calls. It might continue

EL: support for unfunded

StG and AdG finalists in

2010 and 2011 calls

BG: Develops a scheme to financially support projects in the ERC reserve list

CZ: opened support scheme for finalists in 2012

PT: New national initiative in support of ERC finalists being developed

RO: opened support scheme for finalists in 2012

SE: support for unfunded finalists of StG calls since 2007

│ 26 │ 26

Call Planning 2015

• Planning 2015:

• StG 2015 currently open (2-7 yrs PhD)

• Deadline 3 Feb 2015

• CoG 2015 opens 13 November 2014 (7-12 yrs PhD)

• Deadline 12 March 2015

• AdG 2015 opens 10 Feb 2015

• Deadline 2 June 2015

• PoC 2015 opens 7 Nov 2014

• 1st deadline 5 February 2015

• Existing grant holders only

│ 27 │ 27

Some take-home messages….

ERC Awards are:

• Very competitive: ~10% success rates

• Significant: €1.5M – €2.0M for Starters / Consolidators

• Bottom-up: Open to any topic

• Ambitious: Achieve or boost independence; form a group

• Looking for High-risk/ High-gain research

• Flexible: Can re-budget as necessary

• Portable: Can be moved anywhere in Europe

• Prestigious: Will boost a research career

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For further information…

• ERC Web site: http://erc.europa.eu/

• Documents:

• ERC Work Programme (published annually)

• Information for Applicants (published with each call)

• National Contact Points

• European Commission Research Participant Portal

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Thank you