European Research Council

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Executive Agency of the European Research Council
ERCEA

Organization logo
 
 
English name European Research Council Executive Agency
French name Agence exécutive du Conseil européen de la recherche
Organization type European Union Executive Agency
status Establishment of European public law without legal personality
Seat of the organs Brussels , Belgium
Chair Jean-Pierre Bourguignon
founding

December 14, 2007

ERCEA

The European Research Council ( english E uropean R esearch C ouncil , abbreviation: ERC ) is an institution for the financing of basic research , the European Commission as part of the specific program Ideas in the 7th  Research Framework Program established by the EU Commission. The current research framework program Horizon 2020 has been running since 2014 .

As the executive agency of the European Research Council , it is one of the six executive agencies of the European Union . These occupy a special position among the EU agencies. They are set up by the European Commission and are tasked with managing certain programs. They are not set up permanently, but only for a limited period of time and have the same status as a Directorate General of the European Commission . In contrast to the other EU agencies, they have to be located in Brussels or Luxembourg and, unlike these, do not have their own legal personality.

The legal basis for this executive agency is the EU Council Regulation 58/2003 of December 19, 2002 and Commission Decision 2008/37 / EC of December 14, 2007.

task

The European Research Council is supposed to perform tasks comparable to those of the US National Science Foundation , which also inspired its establishment.

In addition to the previous thematic programs, the funding measures of the European Research Council enable research without direct application: this is the term Frontier Research , i.e. research at the limits of knowledge. This is intended to represent a new understanding of basic research, in particular to include high-risk research ( pioneering research ). There are no thematic restrictions in the ERA programs, the only criterion for selection should be excellence.

organization

On July 18, 2006, the 22 founding members of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council were announced. On the German side, the Nobel Prize winner Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology and the physical chemist Hans-Joachim Freund from the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society were represented.

The European Research Council started work on February 27, 2007. The Research Council will initially have one billion euros a year at its disposal. The program should u. a. serve to make the EU more attractive as a research location for highly qualified people, to better identify outstanding scientific talents and to fill gaps in top-level research.

Three founding members of the ERC's scientific council, the sociologist Manuel Castells , the chemist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen and the biologist Robert May left the scientific council in April 2008.

Presidency

General Secretariat

Scientific Council

The Scientific Council of the ERC consists of (as of August 2019): Mauro Ferrari (President), Eveline Crone (Vice President), Janet Thornton (Vice President), Fabio Zwirner (Vice President), Geneviève Almouzni, Thomas Jungwirth, Manuel Arellano , Michael Kramer , Paola Bovolenta, Kurt Mehlhorn , Margaret Buckingham , Barbara Romanowicz , Ben Feringa , Jesper Svejstrup, Mercedes Garcia-Arenal, Nektarios Tavernarakis, Gerd Gigerenzer , Adrzej Jajszczyk, Lene Vestergard Hau , Eystein Jansen and Milena Fuchs.

Funding programs

The European Research Council currently has five research funding programs, three of which are aimed at individual top researchers. The ERC Starting Grant is aimed at young, innovative researchers who want to set up a new research group. This is intended to raise the potential of talented young researchers. The funding lasts for 5 years and is usually up to 1.5 million euros, but this sum can be increased to 2.5 million euros in certain cases (e.g. when particularly expensive acquisitions are necessary). The ERC Consolidator Grant is aimed at established top researchers who have already performed excellent research. The Consolidator Grants also have a funding period of 5 years, the funding usually amounts to up to 2 million euros, whereby the funding can also be increased to up to 3 million euros. The ERC Advanced Grant is aimed at experienced top researchers with over 10 years of research experience who have already played a formative role in their research area. The duration of the funding is also 5 years for the Advanced Grant, the funding is usually 2.5 million euros, but can also be increased to up to 3.5 million euros. Since 2012, the European Research Council has also been awarding the ERC Synergy Grants , which enable teams of two to four researchers to apply for funding for research projects that have an outstanding synergy effect. The funding here is up to 10 million euros over a period of up to 6 years, although this can be up to 14 million euros in justified cases. As an additional funding program, the European Research Council also awards the ERC Proof of Concept , with which researchers who have already completed a project funded by the European Research Council are to be supported in making economic use of its results. The funding for this is up to 150,000 euros over a period of up to 18 months.

Since 2009, submission deadlines have been held for the various programs every year. Up to and including 2018, over 4,000 applications had been approved, with the highest number (834) of approved projects going to research institutions in the UK, followed by German (640) and French (544) research institutions. The highest number of projects was approved in 2012 with 566, since then between around 300 and around 400 projects have been funded each year. The selected projects cover a wide range of topics.

Due to the high level of competition and the focus on research excellence, a successful application to the European Research Council is very prestigious and is often viewed as a high honor for the researcher. At the same time, the strong focus on excellent research is also criticized, as it is almost impossible for research institutions from Eastern Europe, for example, to get a project at the European Research Council, among other things because excellent researchers migrate to other countries, where they have better conditions for their research and better support when applying for prestigious research projects.

The following table lists the ERC grants awarded by country.

country 2007 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 total
United Kingdom 57 43 75 120 143 64 65 62 65 72 68 62 896
Germany 32 29 78 65 77 42 69 44 65 68 68 74 711
France 41 33 73 57 84 30th 49 37 52 52 34 41 583
Netherlands 27 17th 25th 50 43 29 38 38 37 37 45 51 437
Israel 22nd 12 26th 23 26th 32 26th 32 14th 29 23 35 300
Switzerland 17th 22nd 28 23 37 23 3 29 25th 24 26th 31 288
Spain 22nd 19th 25th 27 25th 13 22nd 14th 24 22nd 17th 20th 250
Italy 24 17th 21st 27 29 7th 19th 23 18th 22nd 17th 19th 243
Belgium 10 14th 14th 20th 24 16 12 11 21st 12 16 14th 184
Sweden 11 6th 21st 15th 21st 6th 9 13 17th 15th 18th 14th 166
Austria 5 7th 15th 16 9 13 14th 11 16 14th 10 10 140
Denmark 3 7th 6th 10 13 2 12 8th 4th 7th 14th 9 95
Finland 7th 6th 4th 9 8th 3 9 5 6th 7th 10 4th 78
Ireland 3 3 5 6th 5 3 10 6th 3 5 7th 2 58
Norway 1 1 2 5 4th 4th 6th 1 3 7th 14th 7th 55
Portugal 2 2 5 7th 5 6th 4th 5 5 5 2 48
Hungary 6th 1 5 3 2 1 2 3 4th 1 1 29
Greece 4th 3 3 4th 4th 2 3 2 25th
Poland 1 2 3 2 2 1 2 3 2 4th 2 24
Czech Republic 1 1 1 1 1 3 2 2 5 1 18th
Turkey 2 1 1 2 1 2 2 11
Estonia 1 1 1 1 1 5
Romania 1 1 1 1 1 5
Cyprus 2 1 1 4th
Slovenia 1 1 2 4th
Luxembourg 1 1 1 3
Croatia 1 1 2
Bulgaria 1 1
Iceland 1 1
Serbia 1 1
Slovakia 1 1

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Regulation (EC) No. 58/2003 of the Council of December 19, 2002 laying down the statute for the executive agencies entrusted with certain tasks in the management of Community programs (PDF; 139.62 kB), accessed on August 6, 2013
  2. ↑ Decision of the Commission of 14 December 2007 to set up the "Executive Agency of the European Research Council" to manage the specific Community program "Ideas" in the field of frontier research in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No. 58/2003 (PDF; 47, 44 kB), accessed on August 6, 2013
  3. ^ ERC President and Scientific Council. March 3, 2017, accessed August 26, 2019 .
  4. ^ Starting Grants. February 14, 2017, accessed July 29, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Consolidator Grants. February 14, 2017, accessed July 29, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Advanced Grants. February 14, 2017, accessed July 29, 2019 .
  7. ^ Synergy Grants. July 20, 2017, accessed July 29, 2019 .
  8. ^ Proof of Concept. February 14, 2017, accessed July 29, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Statistics. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
  10. ↑ European Research Council celebrates its 10th anniversary. Federal Ministry of Education and Research , 2017, accessed on February 9, 2020 .
  11. ↑ The European Research Council (ERC). National contact point for the European Research Council, accessed on February 9, 2020 : "The projects are completely open to topics"
  12. ^ Anonymous Academic: European research funding: it's like Robin Hood in reverse . In: The Guardian . November 7, 2014, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed July 29, 2019]).
  13. ↑ Statistics. European Research Council, accessed February 9, 2020 .