1. Towards Enhanced Transatlantic European Research Council
Collaboration in Research and Innovation –
the role of the ERC
Don Dingwell
ERC Secretary General
Science and Technology Landscape
in a Changing World
Washington, 12 December 2011
December 2011
Don Dingwell, Jens Hemmelskamp, Theo Papazoglou

2. What is the ERC? 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
Legislation
• 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
Strategy
wants to do a research project in Europe
• International peer-review
• No predetermined subjects (bottom-up)
• Research in all fields of science and humanities
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3. European Research Council
Budget and how it is being spent
FP7 budget € 50.5 billion; ERC budget € 7.5 billion
Capacities
(8 %) People
JRC non-
(9 %)
nuclear (3 %)
Co-operation Ideas
(65 %) (15 %)

4. European Research Council
ERC Granting schemes
Starting Grants Advanced Grants
• Attract/retain next-generation leaders • Attract/retain current world-leaders
• Address funding gap early in independent • Stimulate investigator-driven, breakthrough
career research
• Establish independent research • up to € 3.5 Mio for 5 years
team & program
• up to € 2.0 Mio for 5 years
60
StG 2010
AdG 2010
Number of grantees
50
40
Number of grantees
30
20
10
0
27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71 73
Age of the grantees
Age of grantees

5. European Research Council
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

6. European Research Council
Achievements of the ERC
- so far
 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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7. European Research Council
ERC Competitions 2007-2011
Total number of of which
applications
received 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"
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8. Higher Education Institutions
Total number By domain
Top
European Research Council
Institution No. Grants SH PE LS 15 European
University of Cambridge 1 67 8 36 23
University of Oxford 2 60 14 27 19
Universities
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) 3 48 1 35 12 hosting
Hebrew University of Jerusalem 4 41 8 17 16 at least 14
Weizmann Institute 5 38 1 17 20
University College London 6 37 14 7 16 ERC Grantees
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH) 7 36 0 20 16 by funding
Imperial College 7 36 0 23 13
University of Helsinki 8 21 1 6 14 Schemes
Catholic University of Leuven 9 20 4 9 7 StG 2007-2011
University of Zurich 9 20 4 3 13 AdG 2008-2010
University of Amsterdam 9 20 13 7 0
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology 9 20 0 13 7
Karolinska institute 10 19 1 0 18
University of Munich (LMU) 10 19 4 8 7
University of Edinburgh 10 19 7 7 5
University of Leiden 10 19 8 10 1
University of Bristol 10 19 1 13 5
Free University Amsterdam 10 19 10 6 3
Radboud University Nijmegen 11 18 7 5 6
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen 12 17 5 8 4
University of Vienna 12 16 4 8 4
University of Utrecht 13 16 4 7 5
University of Heidelberg 14 15 2 7 6
TU Munich 14 15 0 10 5
University of Geneva 14 14 1 4 9
University of Aarhus 14 14 1 8 5
University of Manchester 14 14 2 7 5
University of Lund 14 14 2 7 5
Other selected institutions -examples * Basis:
First seven ERC calls (StG
Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm 15 13 0 13 0 07,09,10,11;AdG 08,09,10),
London School of Economics 17 11 11 0 0 Institution with more than 13
University Pompeu Fabra 19 9 6 2 1 ERC grantees

9. Increasing number European Research Council
of Starting grant applications from
researchers with non-ERA nationality
StG: 1330 applications (180 with residence outside ERA, 16%)
80
70
60
Number of applications
50
40
30
20
10
0
US RU CN CA AU UA JP AR MX KR IN Others
Nationality
Starting 2009 Starting 2010 Starting 2011 ER C 2 0 11

10. Slightly increasing number European Research Council
of Advanced grant applications from
researchers with non-ERA nationality
AdG: 466 applications (121 with residence outside ERA, 25%)
80
70
60
Number of applications
50
40
30
20
10
0
US RU CN CA AU UA JP AR MX KR IN Others
Nationality
ER C 2 0 11
Advanced 2008 Advanced 2009 Advanced 2010 Advanced 2011

11. European Research Council
ERC grantees with
non-ERA nationality
40
Starting Advanced
35 grants grants
StG: 107 grantees
30 AdG: 54 grantees
Number of Grantees
25
20
15
10
5
0
USA A ustralia Russia Canada Japan India A rgentina China Ukraine So uth A frica Others
Starting 35 14 10 8 8 7 5 4 4 0 12
grants
A dvanced 38 3 3 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 5
grants
Nationality

12. European Research Council
Still limited number
of applicants from outside ERA
Non-ERA
residence
country 2007-StG 2009-StG 2010-StG 2011-StG 2008-AdG 2009-AdG 2010-AdG 2011-AdG Total
US 139 51 47 72 30 25 39 39 442
CA 20 3 3 8 7 3 6 2 52
AU 15 3 5 5 2 1 2 2 35
RU 11 0 2 6 2 1 1 4 27
JP 7 4 0 2 0 1 0 2 16
CN 5 1 0 7 0 0 0 1 14
IN 3 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 6
ZA 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 5
BR 2 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 5
UA 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 2 5
KR 0 0 1 3 0 0 1 5
Others 29 4 9 18 2 1 6 4 73
Total 236 66 70 123 43 33 56 58 685
Note: Researchers residing outside ERA at the time of submission

13. European Research Council
Few grantees from outside ERA:
Mainly researchers moving/returning from the US
Country of residence International grantees ERA nationals Total
Argentinia 1 0 1
Australia 1 2 3
Brazil 1 0 1
Canada 1 1 2
Japan 1 1 2
Korea 0 1 1
USA 13 51 64
Total 18 56 74
Note: Researchers residing outside ERA at the time of submission
Incl. Main-list proposals for AdG 2011

14. ERC Internationalisation Strategy European Research Council
ERC calls are open for researcher of any nationality
from anywhere in the world
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;

15. Simple and flexible: European Research Council
Opportunities
for researchers from outside Europe I
Examples for the use of the flexibility of
the ERC rules by Advanced grant applicants
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!).

16. Inform and attract: European Research Council
Opportunities
for researchers from outside Europe II
• 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).

17. European Research Council
Further increase of
internationals panel members
250
226 Averaged over the first 6 completed calls
220
25% of the ERC panel members were women.
197
200
Number of Panel Memebers
Men
Women
149
150 142
100 87
81
69 68
64 62
58
48 46 45
50
32 32 28
27
18 18 15
14
6 6 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1
0
UK DE FR US IT CH ES SE NL AT BE DK PL FI HU CZ IL NO PT EL IE JP TR CA RO AU LT SK TW BG CY EE HR RS RU SI CL HK IS
Country of Panel Member's Host Institution
Based on six completed calls 2007 - 2010
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18. European Research Council
Prospects for the future
Rising applications
5000 +16%
4500
+42%
4000
number of applications
3500
+15%
3000
+14%
2500
+27%
2000
-27%
1500
1000 +25% +10% +12%
+79% -5% +21%
500
0
StG- StG- StG- StG- AdG- AdG- AdG- AdG-
2009 2010 2011 2012 2008 2009 2010 2011
StG AdG
call budget (mil eur)
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19. European Research Council
Unfinished success story
 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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