The European Research Council: Taking Stock and Future Perspectives

Set up in 2007, the European Research Council (ERC) is the first pan-European funding organization for frontier research. With its grant schemes, based on a bottom-up, "investigator-driven" approach and open to any field of research, the ERC has set new precedence in the European Research Area. Excellence is the ERC's sole criterion for providing substantial funding to individual top researchers. Pioneering ideas addressing new and emerging fields of research or introducing unconventional, innovative approaches and scientific inventions are encouraged. Thus, the ERC has rapidly become an acclaimed funding organization with global recognition. In 2010, the ERC could not only celebrate its 1000th funded researchers, but also its first Nobel Prize winner among its grantees – yet another evidence of its remarkable take-off only three years after its inception. At present, about 1000 Starting Grants and over 600 Advanced Grants have been awarded. 

This presentation will focus on why the ERC fills a real need in Europe, as well as discuss its wider impact and its future challenges. Crossing boundaries, both between scientific disciplines and between countries or continents, is one of the ERC's key objectives.

One of the ERC's major achievements is that, for the first time, true competition among top researchers at a European level is happening. The ERC has stirred and changed the European research landscape for the better and demonstrates the malleability of national boundaries. While in parallel starting to serve as benchmark for research institutions throughout Europe, the ERC’s peer-reviewed competitions are fertile breeding ground for a new European research culture. At the same time, the European Research Council looks further and aims to attract top talent to Europe from overseas. The ERC fosters the international dimension, intrinsic to the research community, and is a keen supporter of brain circulation.

Funding first rate researchers from anywhere in the world to perform high-risk/high-gain research at the frontiers of knowledge is certainly pivotal to increase innovation in Europe, to address tomorrow's grand challenges and to ensure that Europe remains competitive on the world stage. While in the final phase of fine-tuning its funding schemes, for the next EU Framework Programme, the budget of the European Research Council needs to be increased significantly in order to nurture more of the excellent talent available and to truly give Europe a boost.