FP7 IDEAS Programme
… and its funding schemes.
Ana Beramendi
VETENSKAPSRÅDET

European Research Council
3R and 2 schemes
Aim: R etain – R epatriate – R ecruit exceptional researchers in any field of science, engineering and scholarship to pursue pioneering frontier research
Activities : Two complementary funding schemes
 ERC Starting Grant (StG): attract & retain the next generation of independent research leaders - up to € 2.0 Mio for 5 years
 ERC Advanced Grant (AdG): attract & reward established independent research leaders - up to
€ 3.5 Mio for 5 years
Call Budget for Starting Grant 2010: € 528 Mio
Call Budget for Advanced Grant 2010: € 590 Mio
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European Research Council
Who can apply? – General requirements
1.
Principal Investigator (PI)
 Nationality, age or current place of work not relevant but: working or moving to work in Europe (EU member state, FP7 Associated Country)
2.
In conjunction with a Host organisation
 Legally recognised public or private research organisation
 To be located in MS or AC
3.
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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 Research at the frontiers is:
 Intrinsically risky
 Characterised by an absence of disciplinary boundaries
 of ground-breaking nature: addresses important challenges, has ambitious objectives, has novel or unconventional concepts and/or approaches
 The ERC wants to avoid outmoded distinctions:
 Between “basic” and “applied” research
 Between “science” and “technology”
 Between “traditional” disciplines

European Research Council
Operational Principles
 Application in response to calls for proposals
 Principal Investigators applies in conjunction and on behalf of a research-performing host institution
 Electronic Proposals Submission System (EPSS)
 Single submission, staged evaluation procedure
 to manage a large number of applications
 Panel-based international peer review process
 Scientific Council selects panels and peer reviewers
 Panels assess and select proposals
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All fields, budget pre-allocation in 3 + 1 areas
European Research Council
 ERC covers all fields of science, engineering and scholarship
 3 main research domains + interdisciplinary research:
 Physical Sciences & Engineering – 10 Panels
 Life Sciences (incl. medical) – 9 Panels
 Social Sciences & Humanities – 6 Panels
 Interdisciplinary Research (cross-panel / cross-domain) –
Panel Chairs meeting
 The call budget will be pre-allocated to these areas as follows:
 39% 34% 14% 13%
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European Research Council
Life Sciences (LS)
 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
Social Sciences and Humanities (SH)
 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 (PE)
 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

Evaluation: Scientific Excellence is the sole criterion
European Research Council
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 (4:Outstanding, 3: Excellent, 2:Very Good, 1: Non-
Competitive)

Threshold ≥ 2 per criterion. Note: Proposals passing quality thresholds and which lie above the budgetary cut-off level will be retained.
Criteria under Heading 3 will be considered as "pass/fail" and commented but not scored
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European Research Council
Concept
 Agreement between ERC and Principal Investigator’s
(PI’s) hosting organisation
 Rights/obligations on scientific, financial, ethical conduct and monitoring, eligible costs, IPR, modifications, grant portability
 Supplementary Agreement between PI and its hosting organisation
 Rights/obligations: administration, project execution, IPR
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European Research Council
The concept of ‘portability’
“Money follows the researcher”
 The Principal Investigator (PI) is entitled to transfer the grant to another institution
 normally after a minimum 2 years at the sponsoring institution
 Proper justification and ERC approval required
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European Research Council
Profile of the PI
• Eligibility window: 2-10 years after PhD award - certain types of career breaks are accepted up to a maximum of 4.5 years read the Guide for
Applicants!
 Starters : award of PhD from 2 to 6 years prior to call publication
 Consolidators : award of PhD over 6 and up to 10 years prior to call publication.
Note: In order to assure comparable success rates for the starters and the consolidators the indicative budget of each panel will be divided in proportion to the budgetary demand of the proposals submitted by these two categories
• Potential for research independence and evidence of maturity
 at least one important publication without participation of PhD supervisor and significant publications as main author.
 Monographs, invited presentations in well-established international conferences, granted patents, awards, prizes, etc
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European Research Council
Profile of the PI
• Any nationality or age
• Any current place of work – but: working or moving to work in Europe
(EU member state, FP7 Associated Country)
• Applicants must be scientifically independent
• Strong leadership profile (impact, recognition)
• Excellent track record (in recent years, achievements not older than
10 years) read the Guide for Applicants!
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Reapplication rules
European Research Council
• Major change for StG 2010 applicants (ERC-2010-StG):
 Every other call, unless proposal was evaluated above the quality treshold at the end of step 1 of the evaluation.
• Note that for StG 2 (ERC-2009-StG) previous rule of reapplication still applies:
 no PI can apply to the StG 3 (ERC-2010-StG) unless proposal was evaluated above the quality threshold during the step 2 but not funded due to insufficient budget
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ERC Advanced Grant 2010
Reapplication rules
Modifications for AdG 2010
European Research Council
WP 2009 WP 2010
Re-application rule: Applicants of either ERC-2008-AdG or ERC-2009-
AdG calls need to have met the quality threshold after step 1 to be eligible for the ERC-2010-AdG call.
Re- application rule unchanged: Applicants of either ERC-2008-AdG or ERC-2009-
AdG calls need to have met the quality threshold after step 1 to be eligible for the
ERC-2010-AdG call.
Re-application rule changed: only allowed to re-apply for ERC-2011-AdG if proposal is evaluated above quality threshold at step-2 but not funded.
Involvement of PI: recommendation in
Guide for Applicants
Involvement of PI: at least 30% of working time to the ERC-funded project while spending at least 50% of the total working time in an EU Member State or Associated
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European Research Council
Proposal content and submission
A1
A2
A3
Proposal, PI and HI data
Host institution info
Budget
* use templates !
ERC Grant proposal StG 2010
PART A – online forms
PART B1 * – submitted as .pdf
Cover page 1 p.
Section 1 The Principal Investigator
Scientific Leadership Potential
CV (including “funding ID”)
2 p.
2 p.
Early achievements track record 2 p.
Extended synopsis 5 p.
Annexes * – submitted as .pdf
Statement of support by host
If applicable: explanatory info and docs on ethical issues
Ethical Issues Table
PART B2 * – submitted as .pdf
Section 2 Scientific proposal
Objectives, methodology, resources, ethical issues table
15 p.
Section 3 Research Environment 2 p.
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European Research Council
Proposal evaluation
Submission
Part - A
Form A1
Form A2
Form A3
+ Annexes
Eligibility Check
Step 1
Part
– B
Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Evaluation
- Indiv. Assessments
PANEL MEETINGS
- Ranking
Step 2
Part
– B
Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Evaluation
- Indiv. assessments
- Interdisciplinary flag
- Interviews (StG only)
PANEL MEETINGS
- Ranking
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European Research Council
ERC Advanced Grant 2010
Guide for Applicants AdG 2010
 Structure: separated from the ERC Starting Grants
 Adjustments related to the WP 2010 changes
 Reference to the new Co-Investigator annex (to be uploaded with personal data of Co-I e.g. Name/Gender/Address/Nationality)
 Increased emphasis on various aspects of proposal preparation and submission such as:
─ ONLY Part B1 (not Part B2) is reviewed in Step 1 of the evaluation
─ Strongly encourage to use costing table template to facilitate the assessment of resources by the panels
─ Download submitted EPSS documents to check their completeness and integrity before the deadline
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European Research Council
ERC Advanced Grant 2010
EPSS - examples of changes
Additional information/ questions A 1 form:
 Yes/No: Permission to use the title and abstract when contacting remote referees
 Yes/No: Agreement to devote at least 30% of the working time to the ERC-funded project (50% in Europe)
 Contact person for the ERC at the Host Institution to communicate results
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European Research Council
ERC Advanced Grant 2010
Lessons learnt for AdG 2010
 Synopsis of Part B 1 should be carefully written (this is the only proposal information that is accessible and judged at step 1!)
 Coherency of budget figures (A3 and Part B2, in case of doubt usually A3 figures serves as a reference)
 Individual reviews are done remotely and are not harmonised (PIs sometimes do not seem to be aware of that)
 Evalution report  Evaluation report consists of panel comments summarising the Panel decision (incl. key strength and weaknesses) and individual comments (Panel Members, remote referees) which may not be necessarily convergent!
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• Physical Sciences and Engineering
• Life Sciences
• Social Sciences and Humanities
• Physical Sciences and Engineering
• Life Sciences
• Social Sciences and Humanities
European Research Council
28-10-2009
18-11-2009
09-12-2009
24-02-2010
17-03-2010
07-04-2010
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European Research Council




Specific text of “Call for Proposal”
ERC Work Programme
ERC Guide for Applicants (!)
ERC Grant agreement
Other:



ERC Guide for Grant Holders
ERC Guide for Peer Reviewers
ERC Rules on submission, evaluation, selection and award procedures
Read always the last published versions !
available at http://erc.europa.eu
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ERC website at http://erc.europa.eu
NEW SECTION
Funded
Projects
European Research Council
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European Research Council
Information and helpdesks
• ERC News Alert http://erc.europa.eu/newsalert
• ERC National Contact Points
In Sweden: Ana Beramendi , VR ( abh@vr.se
) and Gunnar Sandberg ,
Vinnova ( gunnar.sandberg@vinnova.se
)
• ERC helpdesk http://ec.europa.eu/research/enquiries
• EPSS helpdesk technical support on electronic proposal submission https://www.epss-fp7.org/epss/helpdesk.jsp
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European Research Council
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