Transcript European Research Council

European Research Council
The European Research Council
Call comparison:
StG 2007 & AdG 2008
European Research Council
ERC calls
Submitted proposals by domain
Number of proposals
Percentage by domain
10000
150%
9167
Social Sciences & Humanities
1362
Physical Sciences & Engineering
8000
Social Sciences & Humanities
Physical Sciences & Engineering
6000
Life Sciences
100%
14.9%
18.6%
18.5%
48.1%
46.0%
44.4%
37.1%
35.3%
37.0%
Starting Grant 2007
Advanced Grant 2008
Starting Grant 2009
4406
Life Sciences
4000
2167
2000
3399
404
997
2503
50%
464
1112
766
927
Advanced Grant 2008
Starting Grant 2009
0
0%
Starting Grant 2007
│2
ERC StG 2007 and AdG 2008
Host institutions in Hungary
European Research Council
Source: 299 StG and top 275 AdG proposals
Starting grant call 2007
(299 selected grants)
Life Sciences
Physical Sciences
& Engineering
Social Sciences &
Humanities
Advanced grant call 2008
(275 top projects)
Life Sciences
Physical Sciences
& Engineering
Social Sciences &
Humanities
Interdisciplinary
Projects
European Research Council
ERC StG 2007 & ERC AdG 2008
Selected projects: Age of the grantees
50
Advanced grant 08
Number of Grantees
40
Starting grant 07
30
20
10
0
24 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
Age
│4
European Research Council
ERC StG 2007 & ERC AdG 2008
Selected projects: Years after PhD
70
Advanced grant 08
60
Starting grant 07
No PhD: 15 men, AdG-08
Number of Grantees
50
40
30
20
10
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
Years after PhD
28
30
32
34
36
38
40
42
44
46
│5
ERC StG 2007 & ERC AdG 2008
Selected projects: Nationality of grantees
European Research Council
80
Advanced grant 08
70
Starting grant 07
Number of Grantees
60
50
40
30
HU
20
10
0
DE UK FR IT NL IL ES SE BE FI US AT CH EL HU DK PL PT AU CA CY JP NO TR IE AR BG CN CZ IS RO RU SI SK
StG-07:299; AdG-08:275
Nationality
│6
ERC StG 2007 & ERC AdG 2008
Selected projects: Repatriation and Recruitment
European Research Council
Starting Grant 2007
Advanced Grant 2008
Argentina
Japan
Australia
│7
No. of Grantees
ERC StG 2007 & ERC AdG 2008
Mobility: Incoming & staying candidates
115
110
105
100
95
90
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
European Research Council
Relocation
AdG-08
Relocation
StG-07
Staying non-Europeans
AdG-08
Staying non-Europeans
StG-07
Staying Europeans (non-citizens)
AdG-08
Staying Europeans (non-citizens)
StG-07
HU
Staying Citizens
AdG-08
Staying Citizens
StG-07
UK FR DE NL
IT CH ES
IL
SE BE
FI
AT HU EL DK PT CY NO CZ
IE
BG PL TR
IS
European Research Council
ERC StG 2007 & ERC AdG 2008
Success rate by country of host institution
Success rates in %
12
ERC Starting Grant 2007
10
8
HU
6
4
2
0
FR
UK
NL
ES
BE
DE
FI
AT
DK
SE
IT
IE
EL
PT
CY
EU - 15
HU
BG
CZ
IL
EU - 12
CH
NO
Assoc. C.
30
ERC Advanced Grant 2008
Sucess rate in %
25
HU
20
15
10
5
0
SE UK
AT
NL
FR
DE
FI
EU - 15
DK
ES
BE
IT
PT
EL
CY HU
BG
EU - 12
CZ
PL
CH
IS
IL
NO TR
Assoc. C.
European Research Council
Conclusions I
1. ERC has succeeded in gaining European & worldwide recognition as a
world-class research-funding agency
2. ERC has made pioneering steps towards research innovation (e.g.,
interdisciplinarity) & attracted many very-high-quality proposals
3. Success rate of applicants is limited by the current funding level
4. Several national funding agencies decided to fund the researchers listed in
the reserve list. This underpins the confidence on ERC as a pan-European
funding agency that sets standards of excellence.
5. Individual excellence requires excellent "infrastructures and framework
conditions" provided by the organisation which hosts the individual
researcher.
6. Countries that systematically invest large funds into their own R&D are more
successful in creating research environments that attract outstanding
investigators.
European Research Council
Conclusions II
7.
8.
9.
Countries and host institutions should establish framework conditions
that guarantee the sustainability of the ERC incentives, e.g. by
offering long-term contracts (tenure track positions) or dual career
programmes etc.
Wide variations exist within EU/AC in research, research support &
institutional reputation
Hungary was successful in the ERC calls under highly competitive
conditions. Measures to encourage researchers to establish further
activities in Hungary are possible, e.g.:





Joint appointments at HU research institutions for researchers working abroad,
Tenure Track positions and dual career measures for successful StG grantholder,
Complementary measures to support ERC applications
in-depth marketing measures in specific scientific areas which are strong in
Hungary;
Implementation of the Charter & Code to show the stimulating and favourable
working environment for researchers (European Charter for Researchers & Code
of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers)
European Research Council
The European Research Council
Starting Grants
call 2009:
Submission data
European Research Council
ERC Starting Grant 2009
Submitted and selected proposals by domain
Submitted proposals
Life Sciences
927 (37%)
LS Finland
19 (38.8%)
Physical Sciences &
Engineering
1112 (44.4%)
PE Finland
26 (53%)
Social Sciences &
Humanities
464 (18.6%)
SH Finland
4 (8.2%)
∑ = 2503
Selected proposals
?
?
?
European Research Council
86
49
30
2
29
2
47
ERC Starting Grant 2009
Submitted proposals
by country of
host institution
(2503)
4
347
134
95 256
34
28
228
52
19 6
61
434
42
4
26
26
1
227
90
1
7
43
9
80
Source: StG 2009: 2503, 17.12.2008
European Research Council
ERC Starting Grant: 2009 call
Submitted proposals by country of host institution & domain
Source: 2503 submitted proposals
18
Social Sciences & Humanities
16
Physical Sciences & Engineering
Life Sciences
% of submitted Proposals
14
12
10
8
6
4
HU
2
0
StG 09, 2503
17 Dec. 2008
IT
UK
DE
FR
ES
NL
BE
EL
SE
IL
CH
AT
FI
DK
TR
PT
PL
NO
IE
CZ
HU
RO
SI
CY
BG
HR
LT
SK
EE
LV
MT
RS
ERC Starting Grant: 2009 call
Submissions from researchers with a residence
outside ERA
European Research Council
Source: 2503 submitted proposals
1
ERA
3
1
5
1
1
1
1
1
4
ERC Starting Grants 2007 & 2009:
European Research Council
Call comparison: Submissions by country of host institution
Source: 9167 (StG 2007) and 2503 (StG 2009) submitted proposals
18
Starting Grant 07
Starting Grant 09
16
% of submitted Proposals
14
12
10
8
6
HU
4
2
0
IT
UK
DE FR ES NL
StG 07: 9167; StG 09, 2503; 17 Dec. 2008
SE EL
BE
FI
PL CH
IL
HU PT
TR DK AT
IE
RO NO CZ BG
SI SK CY RS HR
LT
EE LU
IS
LV MT
European Research Council
The European Research Council
Information on the
current
Advanced Grants
call 2009
ERC Grant schemes
Who can apply? – General requirements
European Research Council
1. Principal Investigator
Nationality, age or current place
of work not relevant
2. Host organisation
To be located in MS or AS
2. Frontier Research Project
All fields of science, engineering
and scholarship are eligible
(investigator-driven, bottom-up)
4. Individual research team
PI has freedom to choose
National or trans-national character,
if scientific added value proven
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ERC Grant schemes
All fields, budget pre-allocation in 3 + 1 areas
European Research Council

ERC covers all fields of science, engineering and scholarship

For operational reasons the ScC agreed on 3 main research
domains + 1 horizontal domain:
 Physical Sciences & Engineering – 10 Panels
 Life Sciences (incl. medical) – 9 Panels
 Social Sciences & Humanities – 6 Panels
 Interdisciplinary Research (cross-panel / crossdomain) – Panel Chairs

The call budget will be pre-allocated to these areas as follows:
 39% - 34% - 14% - 13%
│ 20
ERC Grant Schemes
ERC Advanced Grant 2009
AdG2 (Call Publication: 19 Nov 2008)
European Research Council
 Indicative Budget: € 490 Mio.
 Single submission (1 stage, 2 steps)
 Electronic submission via EPSS
 Early (pre-)registration strongly recommended
 3 deadlines, 3 domains, 25 panels (10 PE, 9 LS, 6 SH)
 Physical Sciences and Engineering (PE) on 25th March 2009
 Social Sciences and Humanities (SH) on 15th April 2009
 Life Sciences (LS) on 6th May 2009
ERC Advanced Grant
Profile of the PI
European Research Council
 Any nationality or age
 Any current place of work – but: working or moving
to work in Europe (EU member state, FP7 Associated
Country)
 Strong leadership profile (impact, recognition)
 Excellent track record (in recent years,
achievements not older than 10 years)
 read the Guide for Applicants!
ERC Advanced Grant
Proposal content and submission
European Research Council
• This is the first call for which re-applications rules apply. The reapplication and multiple applications rules are given in detail in
the Work Programme.
But specifically, please be warned that:
► Anyone who submitted an eligible proposal to the AdG-2008 as a PI
or as a CO-I cannot apply to the AdG-2009
European Research Council
ERC Advanced Grant Call 2
EPSS Changes / Improvements
•
Section A1: Proposal and PI Information
► Linking of the 1st Keyword (in the A1) form to the primary panel
► Addition of a field requesting from the applicant to state whether it is a
‘Co-Investigator project’ or not
► Reduction of abstract length to 1800 characters from 2000
► Self declaration / certification from the applicant that she/he is aware of and abides by
all applicable resubmission and multiple applications rules
•
Section A1T: The 10 Year Track Record of the PI
► All A1T fields are no longer mandatory (which should lead to fewer submission
problems)
► 2 new sections have been added: “Invitations as Keynote or Plenary Speaker at
International Conferences” & “PhD Supervising”
European Research Council
ERC Advanced Grant Call 2
EPSS Changes / Improvements
•
PART B & Annexes
There are 3 mandatory uploads: B1, B2 and the HI Letter.
The template for the HI letter of support is provided.
Note: exact templates need to be used or proposals risk being declared
ineligible - please note letterhead / signature
•
Differences with AdG1:
Separate uploading of B1 and B2 (to allow only B1 to be sent to reviewers in
Step 1): with their corresponding templates being provided.
B2: Inclusion of a simple Budget Table to allow description of resources.
B2: Inclusion of an Ethical Issues Table to determine if further details on Ethical
Issues are needed.
European Research Council
ERC Advanced Grant Call 2
EPSS Changes / Improvements
•
Submission
► A Validation Check can be performed: check if required attachments are
included
•
Applicants should ensure that the proposal is “submitted” well before the call
closure to allow correction of validation errors.
•
Applicants can re-submit the proposal, before the deadline, as many times as
they like.
The latest version available at the deadline is considered as the one submitted.
When resubmitting, the previously submitted proposal is replaced by the new
version.
•
Please submit ‘early and often’.
European Research Council
ERC Advanced Grant Call 2
The Ethical Issues declaration
If the answer to any of the questions in the Ethical Table is ‘YES’, the applicant
is required to complete and upload a "B2_Ethical Issues Annex" (template
provided).
In the Ethical Issues Annex, the applicant must provide a brief explanation of
the ethical issues involved and how they will be dealt with appropriately.
They need to specify any authorizations or permissions they already have for
the proposed work and include copies which can be uploaded, along with the
Ethical Issues Annex, in the 'Extra Annexes Upload' section included in the
EPSS tab 'Part B & Annexes'.
This will allow an efficient Ethical Review if the proposal is chosen for possible
funding, hence will minimise granting delays.
European Research Council
Eligibility
Eligibility criteria are given in the Work-programme and will
be strictly enforced
The deadline is a deadline
Typical problems:
 Unreadable, corrupted proposal files
 Missing supporting documents
 ‘Improvised’ host-support letter
 StG only: the PhD window and the extensions
European Research Council
ERC Grant Schemes
Evaluation: Scientific Excellence is the sole criterion
Evaluation of Excellence at three levels:
•
Quality of Principal Investigator
•
Quality of Research Project
•
Research Environment
Referees and panels evaluate and score criteria under Heading 1 and
Heading 2 numerically which will result in the ranking of the projects:
 1-4 per criterion
 Threshold ≥ 2 per criterion
Criteria under Heading 3 will be considered as "pass/fail" and
commented but not scored
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European Research Council
ERC Advanced Grant Call 2
Guide for Applicants
• The Guide for Applicants is revised to reflect the changes and
improvements implemented in EPSS.
• The section ‘ERC Advanced Grant Administrative Submission Forms’
has been included in the section ‘Preparing an ERC Advanced Grant
Application’
► The section ‘Preparing an ERC Advanced Grant Application’ now
gives the applicant an overview of what needs to be submitted:
1. The administrative forms (part A)
2. The research proposal (part B)
3. The supporting documentation
European Research Council
ERC Advanced Grant Call (ERC-2009-AdG)
OVERVIEW
• The Panel Meeting Schedule for 2009 has been established
- Step 1 meetings will take place between June 2nd and July 9th 2009
- Step 2 meetings will take place between September 1st and October
15th 2009
- The Final Chair Consolidation Meeting will take place on 10th and 11th
November 2009
► The evaluation process remains unchanged compared to the AdG1
► Interdisciplinary proposals will be treated the same way
European Research Council
The review process
 The review process is relatively complex:
 3 deadlines per call to spread the load – asynchronous work
 2 step process within each panel plus an inter-panel consolidation
 Proceed to granting any retained as fast as possible

The panels are autonomous within their indicative budgets
 Step-1 is carried out amongst members of all panels
 For step-2 external referees are also consulted
 Proposals retained in step-2 and within domain budget go to
immediate granting
 Panels define proposals as ‘pending’ for the subsequent
consolidation, in three classes:
 P = within competence of panel
 D = Inter-disciplinary, within domain
 CD = Inter-disciplinary, across domains
European Research Council
The review process - II

After all domains finished step-2, the Inter-panel consolidation is
carried out by the panel chair-persons. It concerns:
 The decisions on ‘pending’ proposals to be retained in the IDdomain (classed D and CD only)
 The decision on how much of the ID-domain budget to utilise. Unutilised budget is distributed over the domains
 The construction of reserve lists for each domain

The reserve list covers un-utilised ID-domain budget plus
financial contributions to the call from countries associated to the
Framework Programme
ERC Grant schemes
Proposal evaluation
Submission
Part - A
European Research Council
Step 1
Part – B
Step 2
Part – B
Form A1
Section 1
Section 1
Section 2
Section 2
Section 3
Section 3
Form A1T
Form A2
Form A3
+ Annexes
Eligibility Check
Evaluation
- Indiv. Assessments
- PANEL MEETINGS
- Ranking
Evaluation
- Indiv. assessments
- Interdisciplinary flag
- Interviews (StG only)
- PANEL MEETINGS
- Ranking
European Research Council
Inter-disciplinarity

ScC recognises that novel inter-disciplinary approaches have a
potential for opening up new fields of science. They can
contribute to the excellence of a proposal.

ScC also recognises that traditional, discipline-based review
systems have a potential weakness in fairly evaluating interdisciplinary proposals

Hence, ERC opts for a specific approach:
 Mainstreaming: ERC panels only loosely follow disciplinary lines.
 Best-match expertise: ID proposals can be assigned to members of
other panels – and to freely-chosen referees.
 Second-instance: a maximum budget of 13% is allocated to an
‘Interdisciplinary domain’ under the discretion of the panel chairpersons at the end of the review process
ERC Grant Schemes
Peer Review Evaluation Panels
European Research Council
 25 Panels covering all fields of science, technology and
scholarship
 3 sets of Panels: 1 StG Panels, 2 AdG Panels
 Each Panel consists of the Panel Chair
and 10-15 Panel Members
 Panel Chair oversees evaluation process for the proposals
assigned to his/her panel in collaboration with the ERC staff
 The Panel Chair gives high level credibility stamp and visibility to
the whole evaluation process
│ 36
ERC Advanced Grant
Panel structure
European Research Council
Social Sciences and Humanities
Life Sciences









LS1 Molecular & Structural Biology &
Biochemistry
LS2 Genetics, Genomics, Bioinformatics &
Systems Biology
LS3 Cellular and 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 & biotechnology






SH1 Individuals, institutions & markets
SH2 Institutions, values, beliefs and behaviour
SH3 Environment & society
SH4 The Human Mind and its complexity
SH5 Cultures & cultural production
SH6 The study of the human past
Physical Sciences & Engineering










PE1 Mathematical foundations
PE2 Fundamental constituents of matter
PE3 Condensed matter physics
PE4 Physical & Analytical Chemical sciences
PE5 Materials & Synthesis
PE6 Computer science & informatics
PE7 Systems & communication engineering
PE8 Products & process engineering
PE9 Universe sciences
PE10 Earth system science
│ 37
European Research Council
Starting Grant
Advanced Grant
10+7
6+6
Non-European
1+1
1
8+23
5+3
ERC StG & AdG Grants
Panel Members
7+9
USA = 7+62
1
26+55
Australia = 1+12
10+19
8+15
25+55
6+4
Japan = 7
8+10
29+52 6+5
4+17
4+12
Canada = 3
4
India = 1
9+12
1+2
20+33
11+16
5+8
8
1+1
4+10
│ 38
Up-to-date Information
European Research Council
ERC website at http://erc.europa.eu
│ 39
Applicants Services
Information and helpdesks
European Research Council
 ERC News Alert
http://erc.europa.eu/?fuseaction=reg.edit#01
 ERC National Contact Points in the Nordic Countries
inform, raise awareness and provide advice on ERC funding
opportunities, application, follow-up The Academy of Finland in Helsinki

VINNOVA & Vetenskapsrådet in Stockholm

The Research Council of Norway in Oslo

Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation & EuroCenter in
Copenhagen
 http://erc.europa.eu/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.ncpList
 ERC helpdesk
https://www.epss-fp7.org/epss/helpdesk.jsp
│ 40