European Research Council
Scientific Domains
For operational reasons : 25 panels in 3 main domains
PE: Physical Sciences, Engineering (10 panels)
LS: Life Sciences (9 panels)
SH: Social Sciences and Humanities (6 panels)
Plus one horizontal domain: Interdisciplinary
Allocation of Call budget per domain as follows:
PE domain: 39% (40%)
LS domain: 34% (35%)
SH domain : 14% (15%)
Interdisciplinary domain: 13% (10%)
Within domains, indicative budget is allocated to panels on a demand basis
► probability of success independent of panel
European Research Council
ERC Panel Structure: 25 Panels
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
Social Sciences and Humanities
 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
European Research Council
Two step Evaluation
Step 1:
•Only Part B1 is evaluated (PI and Project)
•Evaluated by Panel Members and members of other panels
(if interdisciplinary)
•Proposals need to pass threshold to be retained to next Step
•Only highly ranked proposals
(and within 2-3 times the available budget for each Panel)
are retained for step 2
Step 2
•Both Part B1 and B2 are evaluated against all three evaluation criteria
•Proposals are evaluated by Panel Members and
Remote Referees nominated by Panel Members
│3
European Research Council
Evaluation on Excellence
Scientific Excellence is the sole criterion
• Only the criteria published in the Call are applied
• Evaluation of excellence at 3 levels:
•
•
•
Quality of principal investigator
Quality of the research project
Quality of research environment (at step 2)
4: oustanding
3: excellent
2: very good
1: non-competitive
• Referees and panels evaluate and score criteria 1 & 2
numerically which results in the ranking of the projects:
• 1-4 per criterion
• threshold ≥ 2 per criterion
• Criteria 3 is considered as "pass/fail"
European Research Council
Evaluation Criteria
Potential of the Principal Investigator: (last 10 years for AdG)
Quality of research output (track record, qualification, achievements, independence,
reputation)
Intellectual capacity and creativity (collaborations, mentoring, challenge confrontation,
initiative for new lines of thinking) and capacity to attract funding (AdG)
Quality of the research project:
Ground-breaking nature (challenges, ambition, trans-discipinarity, new concepts)
Potential impact (open new horizons, enhance frontier research in Europe)
Methodology (approach, timescale, resources, feasibility)
High risk/high gain balance (new or unconventional methodology, major breakthrough)
Research environment:
Contribution to the project (infrastructural and intellectual environment)
Participation of other legal entities (if added value to the proposal)
European Research Council
Interdisciplinarity
• Novel interdisciplinary approaches can open potentials for new
fields of science and can contribute to the excellence of a
proposal
• To overcome traditional, discipline-based review systems in fairly
evaluating interdisciplinary proposals
• ERC has a specific approach (mainstreaming; Interdisciplinary
Domain):
•ERC panels may only loosely follow disciplinary lines
•Proposals can be assigned to members of other panels and to
freely-chosen referees to better match expertise
•13% of the budget is allocated to an ‘Interdisciplinary Domain’
European Research Council
Review Process
STEP 1
STEP 2
Remote assessment by Panel members
of section 1
Remote assessment by Panel members
and reviewers of all sections
Panel meeting
Panel meeting + interview (StG)
Proposals retained
for step 2
Consolidating Panel
chairs meeting
Feedback to
applicants
Ranked list of
proposals
ERC Starting Grant: 2007, 2009, 2010
Submissions by call & domain
European Research Council
Number of submitted proposals
4500
Life Sciences
4406
4000
Physical Sciences & Engineering
Social Sciences & Humanities
3500
3000
- 72.7%
3399
2500
+ 14.8%
2000
1500
1000
1362
927
500
1112
1030
464
1205
638
0
Starting Grant
2007
Starting Grant
2009
Starting Grant
2010
│8
European Research Council
ERC Starting Grant 2007
Two Step Evaluation Process
3.4% Success Rate*
8794
proposals
evaluated
(9167 submitted!)
Interviews
559
proposals
299
successful proposals
Awarded budget
about € 335 million
*Based on evaluated proposals only
ERC Starting Grant: 2007 call
Eligible proposals by host country & gender
European Research Council
1200
1575
Source: 8794 evaluated proposals
Male
Female
No. of eligible proposals
1000
800
600
400
200
0
IT UK DE FR ES NL SE
EL BE
FI
IL
CH PL HU PT DK TR AT
IE RO NO CZ BG
SI CY SK RS HR LT EE LU
IS
LV M T
ERC Starting
Grant: 2007 call
European Research Council
Selected proposals
by host countries
7
1
10
2
4
59
27
11
32
1
38
4
14
6
26
2
25
1
4
2
24
Source: 300 proposals, 02.10.2008
European Research Council
ERC Starting Grant 2009
Two Step Evaluation Process
9.91% Success Rate*
2392
proposals
evaluated
Interviews
(2503 submitted)
457
proposals
237
successful proposals
Awarded budget
about € 325 million
*Based on evaluated proposals only
European Research Council
ERC Starting Grant 2009
Submitted proposals by country of host institution & gender
18
Male
16
Female
% of submitted Proposals
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
IT
UK DE FR ES
StG 09, 2503 17 Dec. 2008
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
European Research Council
Successful proposals
by country of host institution
Source: 219 selected proposals
6
5
1
3
7
41
15
14
26
2
26
5
16
1
3
17
15
2
14
Source:
StG-09
mainlist:
219, 25.06.2009
StG 07-299,
05 Dec.
2008
ERC Starting Grant: 2007 call
Success rate of host countries
European Research Council
Relation between submitted proposals (9167) and 300 selected proposals (02.10.2008)
12
10
in %
8
6
Italy
4
2
0
FR
UK
NL
ES
BE
DE
FI
AT
DK
SE
IT
IE
EU - 15
Source: All submitted proposals (9167) and 300 selected proposals (02.10.2008)
EL
PT
CY
HU
BG
EU - 12
CZ
IL
CH
NO
Assoc. C.
European
Research
Council
European
Research
Council
Statistics 2009
Submissions by nationality of PI

Submissions of Italian PI:



20.5 % of European
(population 12.6 %)
Submissions of Italian PI in Italian HI:


80 % of the submission from italian PI
(bigger than in similar countries)
European Research Council
ERC Advanced Grant 2008
Two Step Evaluation Process
13.52% Success Rate
2034
proposals
evaluated
(2167 submitted)
648
proposals
275
successful proposals
Awarded budget
about € 542 million
ERC Advanced
Grant: 2008 call
European Research Council
Top 256 candidates
by host countries
1
9
2
13
4
56
16
5
25
1
1
32
8
26
18
1
4
13
1
4
1
1
14
Source: 256 selected proposals (29 Sept. 2008)
ERC Starting and Advanced grants:
Host institutions in Italy and number of grants
European Research Council
•
Universita’ di Bologna (1)
•Universita’ di Napoli (2)
•
•
CENTRO EURO-MEDITERRANEO
PER I CAMBIAMENTI CLIMATICI SCARL (1)
•
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (8)
•Università degli Studi di Padova (2)
•
•Università degli studi di Parma (3)
•
•Universita’ di Pavia (2)
IFOM FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO FIRC DI ONCOLOGIA
MOLECOLARE (2)
•Universita’ di Roma ‘La Sapienza’ (7)
•
Istituto Europeo di Oncologia S.r.l.(2)
•
Politecnico di Milano (3)
•
SISSA (2)
•
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (3)
•
•
•
LUISS (1)
•
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (2)
•
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (2)
•
Universita’ di Milano Bicocca (1)
European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy (2)
•Universita’ di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’ (2)
•Universita di Roma Tre (2)
•Sincrotrone Trieste SCpA
•European Brain Research Institute
•Fondazione Centro San Raffaele del Monte Tabor (4)
•Fondazione ISI
•Fondazione Telethon (2)
Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (3 grants)
Universita degli Studi di Firenze (2)
…………