Dingwell 12 12-11

European Research Council Towards Enhanced Transatlantic Collaboration in Research and Innovation – the role of the ERC

December 2011 Don Dingwell, Jens Hemmelskamp, Theo Papazoglou

Don Dingwell ERC Secretary General

Science and Technology Landscape in a Changing World

Washington, 12 December 2011

European Research Council

ERC is a new type of funding body in Europe to support excellence in frontier research, a bottom-up, individual-team, pan-European competition

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What is the ERC?

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• Scientific Council with 22 Members• Support by the ERC Executive Agency• Significant budget (1.2 billion €/year)• Excellence as the only valid criterion

• Support for the individual scientist and their teams• Open to researchers from anywhere in the world who wants to do a research project in Europe• International peer-review• No predetermined subjects (bottom-up)• Research in all fields of science and humanities


Budget and how it is being spent FP7 budget € 50.5 billion; ERC budget € 7.5 billion

Co-operation (65 %)

Ideas (15 %)

People (9 %)

Capacities (8 %)JRC non-

nuclear (3 %)


ERC Granting schemes

Starting Grants Advanced Grants

StG 2010AdG 2010

• Attract/retain next-generation leaders• Address funding gap early in independent

career• Establish independent research

team & program• up to € 2.0 Mio for 5 years

• Attract/retain current world-leaders• Stimulate investigator-driven, breakthrough

research• up to € 3.5 Mio for 5 years

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Speeding up the discovery process: Synergy Grant

2–4 researchers; complementary skills, knowledge & resources; to jointly address frontier research problems; beyond what the individual researcher could achieve alone

Up to €15m for up to six years - €150m total budget 2012

Based on ERC principles (no consortia, no networks):• bottom-up and risk-taking• driven by scientific demand• includes novel ways of working together “core time” • only one Host Institution


Achievements of the ERC - so far

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more than 2.500 funded proposals, 58% of them StG in more than 480 different host institutions in 27 countries,

total 4 billion but “excellence attracts excellence”: 50% of PIs in 50

institutions highly competitive: average success rate 12 % strong structuring effects: competition between European

universities for first time ever, EU value added strengthening merit-based evaluation systems in Europe


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ERC Competitions 2007-2011

Evaluated* Funded success rates**

Starting Grant 2007 9.167 8.794 299 3,4

Starting Grant 2009 2.503 2.392 245 10,2

Starting Grant 2010 2.873 2.767 436 15,8

Starting Grant 2011 4.080 4.005 478 11,9

Starting Grant 18.623 17.958 1.458 10,3

Advanced Grant 2008 2.167 2.034 282 13,9

Advanced Grant 2009 1.583 1.526 245 16,1

Advanced Grant 2010 2.009 1.967 271 13,8

Advanced Grant 2011*** 2.284 2.245 293 13,1

Advanced Grant 8.043 7.772 1.091 14,6

* withdrawn and ineligible proposals not taken into account;

** percentage of funded proposals in relation to evaluated proposals

*** main-list proposals in column "funded"

Total number of applications

received

of which

European Research Council Top

15 European Universities

hosting at least 14

ERC Grantees by funding

SchemesStG 2007-2011

AdG 2008-2010

* Basis: First seven ERC calls (StG 07,09,10,11;AdG 08,09,10),

Institution with more than 13 ERC grantees

Institution No. Grants SH PE LSUniversity of Cambridge 1 67 8 36 23University of Oxford 2 60 14 27 19Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) 3 48 1 35 12Hebrew University of Jerusalem 4 41 8 17 16Weizmann Institute 5 38 1 17 20University College London 6 37 14 7 16Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH) 7 36 0 20 16Imperial College 7 36 0 23 13University of Helsinki 8 21 1 6 14Catholic University of Leuven 9 20 4 9 7University of Zurich 9 20 4 3 13University of Amsterdam 9 20 13 7 0Technion - Israel Institute of Technology 9 20 0 13 7Karolinska institute 10 19 1 0 18University of Munich (LMU) 10 19 4 8 7University of Edinburgh 10 19 7 7 5University of Leiden 10 19 8 10 1University of Bristol 10 19 1 13 5Free University Amsterdam 10 19 10 6 3Radboud University Nijmegen 11 18 7 5 6Rijksuniversiteit Groningen 12 17 5 8 4University of Vienna 12 16 4 8 4University of Utrecht 13 16 4 7 5University of Heidelberg 14 15 2 7 6TU Munich 14 15 0 10 5University of Geneva 14 14 1 4 9University of Aarhus 14 14 1 8 5University of Manchester 14 14 2 7 5University of Lund 14 14 2 7 5

Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm 15 13 0 13 0London School of Economics 17 11 11 0 0University Pompeu Fabra 19 9 6 2 1

Higher Education Institutions

Other selected institutions -examples

By domainTotal number


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Starting 2009 Starting 2010 Starting 2011 ERC 2011

StG: 1330 applications (180 with residence outside ERA, 16%)

Increasing number of Starting grant applications from researchers with non-ERA nationality


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Advanced 2008 Advanced 2009 Advanced 2010 Advanced 2011ERC 2011

AdG: 466 applications (121 with residence outside ERA, 25%)

Slightly increasing number of Advanced grant applications from researchers with non-ERA nationality


ERC grantees with non-ERA nationality

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Advanced grants

Starting grants

35 14 10 8 8 7 5 4 4 0 12

Advanced grants

38 3 3 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 5

USA Australia Russia Canada J apan India Argentina China Ukraine South Africa Others

StG: 107 grantees AdG: 54 grantees


Still limited number of applicants from outside ERA

2007-StG 2009-StG 2010-StG 2011-StG 2008-AdG 2009-AdG 2010-AdG 2011-AdG TotalUS 139 51 47 72 30 25 39 39 442CA 20 3 3 8 7 3 6 2 52AU 15 3 5 5 2 1 2 2 35RU 11 0 2 6 2 1 1 4 27JP 7 4 0 2 0 1 0 2 16CN 5 1 0 7 0 0 0 1 14IN 3 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 6ZA 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 5BR 2 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 5UA 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 2 5KR 0 0 1 3 0 0 1 5Others 29 4 9 18 2 1 6 4 73Total 236 66 70 123 43 33 56 58 685

Non-ERA residence country

Note: Researchers residing outside ERA at the time of submission


Few grantees from outside ERA:

Mainly researchers moving/returning from the US

Country of residence International grantees ERA nationals TotalArgentinia 1 0 1Australia 1 2 3Brazil 1 0 1Canada 1 1 2Japan 1 1 2Korea 0 1 1USA 13 51 64Total 18 56 74

Note: Researchers residing outside ERA at the time of submissionIncl. Main-list proposals for AdG 2011


International presence:• Secretary General as ambassador;• Strategy workshops with local representatives of funding institutions,

research institutions and EU research institution (Humboldt, CNRS) etc.;

Simple and flexible:• Simplification of rules of submission, specific chapter in ERC Work

Programme;• Pronouncing funding of start-up costs and viability of time requirements;

Inform and attract:• Organisation of scientific workshops;• Encouraging European top-researchers to invite their international

partners to apply for ERC grants;

ERC Internationalisation Strategy

ERC calls are open for researcher of any nationality from anywhere in the world


ERC rules provide some flexibility:

e.g. grantees can retain affiliation with home university outside ERA.

Grantee must spend a “significant part” of the work time at the host institution in ERA (min. time requirements!).

Simple and flexible: Opportunities for researchers from outside Europe I

Examples for the use of the flexibility of the ERC rules by Advanced grant applicants


• Additional EUR 500 000 for Starting grantees and EUR 1 Mio for Advanced grantees available to cover eligible “start-up” costs for PI´s moving to EU.

• Non-ERA team members can take part in ERC projects.

• ERC teams offer research vacancies ("Euraxess" web-page).

Inform and attract: Opportunities for researchers from outside Europe II


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Men

Women

Based on six completed calls 2007 - 2010

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Further increase of internationals panel members

Averaged over the first 6 completed calls 25% of the ERC panel members were women.


Prospects for the futureRising applications

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+14%

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+42%

+15%

+79% +25% +10%-5% +21% +12%

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call budget (mil eur)


enormous talent throughout Europe: demand of undiminished quality continues to rise, especially for Starting Grants

implement internationalisation strategy in order to attract more excellent researcher from outside Europe

fund more excellent women scientists

build on past achievements, expand by experimenting with the new Synergy scheme

budget proposal by EC for ERC under H2020: 15 billion

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Unfinished success story