ERC’s historic antecedents: European intergovernmental research organizations
The aftermath of the Second World War saw the launch of several European intergovernmental research organizations and facilities, in the spirit of enhancing cooperation, cohesion, and understanding among countries, as with the politico-industrial European Coal & Steel Community in 1951 (which paved the way for the European Union). These initiatives were put together by the research community and financed by their member states, and include, among others, the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 1954, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in 1962, the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 1964, and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in 1974. Focused on frontier research and being open to researchers worldwide, these large European infrastructures have provided a source of inspiration for the creation of the European Research Council (ERC) in promoting excellence in science at a transnational level.
Raising the competitiveness of EuropeReference Winnacker2
For any modern society, and Europe in particular, investment in talented people doing excellent research is an imperative, not an option. Yet for decades the European countries have been shedding some of their most gifted scientists and scholars, predominantly to the US, in a largely one-way stream of traffic known as the ‘brain drain’. It is thus evident that in order to become more competitive, Europe must:
(1) Generate, attract and retain top talent. Europe has been traditionally strong in generating, but weaker in attracting and retaining talented researchers. We envisage replacing the ‘brain drain’ by a ‘brain circulation’, encouraging two-way traffic between Europe and the rest of the world. This would advance science and scholarship (which are global activities by nature), but also benefit all respective partners. The diverse, polyglot, multicultural and historically diverse communities of Europe could be our strategic ally here: We recognize that given equally attractive career prospects at home as abroad, people tend to prefer to settle down and raise children in their own culture.
(2) Integrate and internationalize its efforts. An integrated science policy for the whole of Europe, adopting best international practice, would be more effective in dealing with the needs of the European research community than the ‘sum’ of Europe’s constituent national policies. Science policy makers need to learn from successful countries in Europe and overseas, identify best practices from anywhere in the world, then adapt and develop them further to create open, competitive, excellence-pursuing policies in Europe.
(3) Encourage and trust the young. For long the young investigators in Europe have faced grave obstacles and dim prospects in advancing their careers, from inflexible and hierarchical environments, to shortage of funds to advance and sustain their research. Addressing this problem is central to revitalizing European research.
(4) Create attractive career paths. Recruiting and retaining talented people goes hand in hand with offering them attractive and competitive career options. To attract the most brilliant investigators worldwide, Europe needs to do more in providing generous grants, flexibility, support and competitive tenure-track options.
(5) Create a competitive ‘Champions’ League’ for research, which sets standards. Competition based on merit across the continent is an imperative for stimulating creativity and harbouring excellence. We envisage two levels of a pan-European competition for the pursuit of excellence: between individual researchers and between research institutes.
The ERC priorities in science policy
The ERC was created in 2007, operating on the sole principle of promoting peer-reviewed excellence in frontier research across the European Research Area (ERA) spanning the 27 EU Member States, and the (currently 12) Associated and Candidate Countries (AC). The ERC is governed by its Scientific Council (ScC), an independent body of 22 eminent researchers across Europe, which is supported by an office in Brussels called the Dedicated Implementation Structure (DIS). In 2009 the DIS will transform into the ERC Executive Agency, as foreseen in the legislation setting up the ERC. The independence of the ScC and functionality of the ERC is guaranteed by the European Commission (EC), who provides the funds for ERC’s operation within its 7th Framework Programme. The governance and structure of the ERC has been described in more detail elsewhere.Reference Antonoyiannakis, Hemmelskamp and Kafatos3, 4 Here, we briefly outline the key elements of its strategy.
• Promote excellence irrespective of nationality, age, or field of research. The ERC welcomes research proposals for funding from nationals of any country in the world, as long as they are committed to work in Europe; and devote a substantial amount of their time on the funded project. All fields of science and scholarship are supported, from engineering to humanities.
• Focus on frontier research, not on specific thematic areas.
• Strongly encourage interdisciplinarity: while the ERC supports all traditional fields, it is also aware that often the greatest discoveries are made at the interface of two distinct and seemingly unconnected disciplines. 13% of the ERC funds are currently earmarked for interdisciplinary proposals.
• Trust the dynamic of science – keep the ERC policies simple, flexible, focused. Reduce administrative/bureaucratic procedures as much as possible.
• Neither enforce nor discourage collaborations, but trust researchers to find (if they wish) the best people in their field to collaborate with, whether in Europe or elsewhere. While the Principal Investigator for an ERC grant needs to be based in Europe, there is no such requirement for a Co-Investigator.
• ERC grants are flexible (the Principal Investigator can re-budget).
• ERC grants are portable from one host institution to another, if the grant holding researcher wishes to relocate within Europe. In allowing this flexibility the ERC is aiming at enhancing a pan-European competition among institutions as much as among individual researchers.
ERC granting schemes: Starting Grant (StG) and Advanced Grant (AdG)
Currently the ERC provides two granting schemes, which are briefly described as follows:
• Starting Grants (StG) for young investigators, 3–8 years after their PhD at present (extensions to this period for eligible career breaks are provided). Funds are up to €2 million over 5 years.
• Advanced Grants (AdG) for leading scientists, who have demonstrated excellence in the previous 10 years. Up to €3.5 million over 5 years.
In addition to covering 100% of direct costs, the ERC contributes up to 20% towards indirect costs for the grants it provides.
At present, both ERC granting schemes place equal weight on the track record of the applicants and the research proposal. Researchers are encouraged to set ambitious goals and propose projects that could radically reshape their fields (or spur new fields) if successful.
Central to the operation and success of ERC is its proposal evaluation process: A pan-European peer-review system, consisting of about 900 evaluation panellists and another 1000 external referees. The ERC keen on further expanding its referee base overseas (to the US, Japan, Canada, India, etc) in an effort to reach out to the best reviewers worldwide and reduce the risk of potential conflict of interest.
A first look at the two completed calls
In 2007, the ERC completed its first StG call (StG1), followed by the first AdG call (AdG1) in 2008. We report here some very preliminary results from these two calls. A more detailed and substantive analysis has appeared elsewhere.Reference Antonoyiannakis, Hemmelskamp and Kafatos3
The StG1 call met with an almost overwhelming response from young investigators across Europe and overseas, who submitted 9167 applications. Ultimately the ERC funded 299 proposals, and many excellent applications had to be turned down due to lack of funds. Thus, the overall acceptance rate was unfortunately low, at ∼3%. In the AdG1 call, 2167 applications were received and some 275 of them are expected to receive funding; the acceptance rate here is a little over 12%. Success was spread out considerably over many countries of the ERA, with 21 host countries in StG1, and 23 host countries in AdG1. The range of nationalities of successful applicants was equally if not more diverse: among the 27 EU countries, only nationals from Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Malta have not received grants so far (no Maltese nationals applied). For StG1, the most successful host countries (achieving > 4% in terms of success rates) were Israel, Switzerland, Cyprus, France, UK, Netherlands, and Spain. For AdG1, the leading success rates (>12%) occurred for Switzerland, Sweden, Island, UK, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Cyprus, Hungary, Finland, and Denmark. Note that for the AdG1, researchers from Cyprus and Iceland submitted a small number of applications; hence there is a sizable statistical error in their success rates.
In terms of the sheer number of grants, the leading host countries were the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Israel, and Spain.
As for gender balance, 11.6% of the AdG1 grantees, and 26.7% of the StG1 grantees are women. It appears that these success rates reflect approximately the balance of female researchers in corresponding positions in research-intensive universities across Europe (Full Professor versus Assistant/Associate Professor). A more in-depth analysis of this important topic was presented elsewhere.Reference Antonoyiannakis, Hemmelskamp and Kafatos3 Being an inclusive organization operating on the sole basis of excellence, the ERC is sensitive to the question of equal opportunities, and will analyze and monitor closely the success of female applicants.
Decentralizing the ERC Scientific Council meetings
The Scientific Council (ScC) convenes five times a year, to monitor and create the ERC policy. From 2007 through to 2009, the ScC has scheduled its meetings in 21 different European countries, from Portugal to Estonia, and from Turkey to Ireland. By organizing the ScC meetings in several new and small EU member states, as well as in non-EU countries, the ERC aims to demonstrate its inclusive nature, show its strong interest in further developing research in all these countries, and inspire the best scientists and scholars across Europe.
Outlook
The European Research Council aims to galvanize Europe towards a merit-based competition for the most talented ideas and researchers. In the months and years to come, the ERC will monitor the results from the calls closely, analyze and learn from experience, and revise its policies accordingly. Many challenges remain to be met, but we firmly believe that like its historic antecedents (CERN, ESO, EMBL) this European initiative will also be met with success and worldwide recognition.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the DIS staff, and especially to William Cannell and Jens Hemmelskamp, for their support, data provision, expertise, and dedication. They also acknowledge stimulating discussions with Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, Helga Nowotny, Daniel Esteve, and Jack Metthey.
Fotis C. Kafatos is currently Professor of Immunogenomics at Imperial College London, and President or the European Research Council. He was previously Director-General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL, 1993-2005) and Professor at Harvard (1969–1994). He founded and directed the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the Research Centre of Crete from 1982 to 1993. His current scientific work is on malaria research, with an emphasis on mosquito genomics and immunity of Anopheles to the Plasmodium parasite. He is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London and the French Academy of Sciences, and Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, EMBO and Academia Europaea.
Manolis Antonoyiannakis is a scientific advisor to ERC President Fotis C. Kafatos at Imperial College London. He is also an Assistant Editor at Physical Review Letters, a journal published by the American Physical Society. His current research interests include complex systems such as citation networks and author–referee networks in peer-reviewed publications, and evaluation methods for assessing the impact of research.
