Established by the European Commission ERC Funding Opportunities: Supporting Excellent Researchers All Over Europe Mart Saarma Institute of Biotechnology, Biocentrum Helsinki, University of Helsinki LEPL - Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation (SRNSF) International Supervisory Board (ISB) meeting Tbilisi, February 25-26, 2016

Established by the European Commission © Art & Build Architect / Montois Partners / credits: S. Brison The European Research Council

Established by the European Commission │ 3 ERC BASICS

Established by the European Commission  Support for the individual scientist  Global peer-review  No predetermined subjects (bottom-up)  Support of frontier research in all fields of science and humanities The ERC supports excellence in frontier research through a bottom-up, individual-based, pan-European competition │ 2 What is ERC? Legislation Strategy  Scientific governance: independent Scientific Council with 22 members including the ERC President; full authority over funding strategy  Support by the ERC Executive Agency (autonomous)  Excellence as the only criterion Budget: € 13 billion ( ) billion €/year € 7.5 billion ( ) billion €/year │ 4

Established by the European Commission Need for a European Research Council From being traditionally very strong, science in Europe has declined in a global comparison: Low funding of research in many European countries Suboptimal procedures for scientific evaluations making it difficult to allocate available resourses appropriately Low mobility of European scientists Hierarchic academic structures making it difficult for young scientists to receive support and independence

Established by the European Commission Aims of ERC Enforce frontier research in Europe (retain, repatriate, recruit) Raise the level of ambition Establish a model for research funding Complement other EU support for research Complement national support for basic research

Established by the European Commission Keep it simple, flexible and focused “Starting and Consolidator Grants”: Support young researchers “Advanced Grant”: Support leading scientists Promote excellence irrespective of nationality, age or field Trust the dynamic of science  Collaborations are neither enforced nor discouraged  Grants are flexible and portable Encourage interdisciplinarity The ERC strategy

Established by the European Commission │ 8 ERC Structure: ERC has strong autonomy The European Commission Provides financing through the EU framework programmes Guarantees autonomy of the ERC Assures the integrity and accountability of the ERC Adopts annual work programmes as established by the Scientific Council The ERC Executive Agency Executes annual work programme as established by the Scientific Council Implements calls for proposals and provides information and support to applicants Organises peer review evaluation Establishes and manages grant agreements Administers scientific and financial aspects and follow-up of grant agreements Carries out communications activities and ensures information dissemination to ERC stakeholders The ERC Scientific Council 22 prominent researchers proposed by an independent identification committee Appointed by the Commission (4 years, renewable once) Establishes overall scientific strategy; annual work programmes (incl. calls for proposals, evaluation criteria); peer review methodology; selection and accreditation of experts Controls quality of operations and management Ensures communication with the scientific community

Established by the European Commission ERC in the H2020 Structure  The HORIZON 2020 main components:  Excellent Science  World class science is foundation of technologies, jobs, well-being  Europe needs to develop, attract, retain research talent  Researchers need access to the best infrastructures  Industrial leadership  Societal challenges  Excellent Science:  European Research Council (budget under H2020: € 13 billion)  Future and Emerging Technologies  Marie Skłodoswka Curie Actions  Research Infrastructures │ 9

Established by the European Commission ERC in the H2020 Structure  The HORIZON 2020 main components:  Excellent Science  World class science is foundation of technologies, jobs, well-being  Europe needs to develop, attract, retain research talent  Researchers need access to the best infrastructures  Industrial leadership  Societal challenges  Excellent Science:  European Research Council (budget under H2020: € 13 billion)  Future and Emerging Technologies  Marie Skłodoswka Curie Actions  Research Infrastructures │ 10

Established by the European Commission ERC H2020 Budget ERC Budget € 13 billion │ 11

Established by the European Commission ERC Scientific Council Members Prof. Klaus BOCK (Chemistry), ERC Vice-President Prof. Jean-Pierre BOURGUIGNON (Mathematics), ERC President Prof. Margaret BUCKINGHAM (Biology) Prof. Athene DONALD (Biological Physics) Dr. Barbara ENSOLI (Medicine) Prof. Tomas JUNGWIRTH (Physics) Prof. Matthias KLEINER (Engineering) Prof. Michael KRAMER (Astrophysics) Prof. Eva KONDOROSI (Biology) Prof. Mart SAARMA (Biology & Neuroscience), ERC Vice-President Prof. Nuria SEBASTIAN GALLES (Psychology), ERC Vice-President Prof. Nils Christian STENSETH (Ecology & Evolution) Prof. Martin STOKHOF (Philosophy) Prof. Janet THORNTON (Bioinformatics) Prof. Isabelle VERNOS (Molecular and Cell Biology) Prof. Reinhilde VEUGELERS (Economics) Prof. Michel WIEVIORKA (Sociology) Prof. Fabio ZWIRNER (Theoretical Physics)

Established by the European Commission │ 13 ERC Grants: how to apply?

Established by the European Commission Starting Grants starters (2-7 years after PhD) up to € 2.0 Mio for 5 years Advanced Grants track-record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years up to € 3.5 Mio for 5 years Proof-of-Concept bridging gap between research - earliest stage of marketable innovation up to €150,000 for ERC grant holders ERC Grant Schemes in action Consolidator Grants consolidators (7-12 years after PhD) up to € 2.75 Mio for 5 years │ 14

Established by the European Commission Synergy Grants (2 exploratory calls) 2 – 4 Principal Investigators up to € 15.0 Mio for 6 years ERC Basics ERC Funding Schemes 24 Synergy grants funded in 2 calls Currently the scheme is under assessment to decide whether or not to continue

Established by the European Commission ERC offers independence, recognition & visibility to work on a research topic of own choice, with a team of own choice to gain true financial autonomy for 5 years to negotiate with the host institution the best conditions of work to attract top team members (EU and non-EU) and collaborators to move with the grant to any place in Europe if necessary (portability of grants) to attract additional funding and gain recognition; ERC is a quality label │ 16 Creative Freedom to Individual Grantee │ 16

Established by the European Commission Physical Sciences & Engineering  PE1 Mathematics  PE2 Fundamental constituents of matter  PE3 Condensed matter physics  PE4 Physical & Analytical Chemical sciences  PE5 Materials & Synthesis  PE6 Computer science & informatics  PE7 Systems & communication engineering  PE8 Products & process engineering  PE9 Universe sciences  PE10 Earth system science Life Sciences  LS1 Molecular & Structural Biology & Biochemistry  LS2 Genetics, Genomics, Bioinformatics & Systems Biology  LS3 Cellular and Developmental Biology  LS4 Physiology, Pathophysiology & Endocrinology  LS5 Neurosciences & neural disorders  LS6 Immunity & infection  LS7 Diagnostic tools, therapies & public health  LS8 Evolutionary, population & environmental biology  LS9 Applied life sciences & biotechnology │ 17 Evaluation Panel Structure (WP2015) Social Sciences and Humanities  SH1 Markets, individuals & institutions  SH2 The social world, diversity, institutions & values  SH3 Environment, space & population  SH4 The Human Mind and its complexity  SH5 Cultures & cultural production  SH6 The study of the human past

Established by the European Commission  Goal of the evaluation: select the best frontier research proposals  Only evaluation criteria: excellence  Method: peer review  Structure: 25 panels distributed in 3 scientific domains (10 Physical Sciences, 9 Life Sciences and 6 Social Sciences and Humanities)  Each panel consists of 1 panel chair and panel members  Two step evaluation and for StG and CoG this includes interview │ 18 Peers Review procedure What makes ERC evaluation exceptional? ERC Basics Evaluation of Proposals: Main Features

Established by the European Commission Have a bright, original and exciting idea Design a research project to implement the idea Get a letter of support from a HI where the project is to be carried out (the HI must be located in EU or any of the H2020 associated countries) Write your research proposal and submit it within the deadline! All electronic / web based │ 19 How to prepare and submit an ERC research proposal?

Established by the European Commission Remote assessment by Panel members of section 1 – PI and synopsis Panel meeting Proposals retained for step 2 STEP 1 Remote assessment by Panel members and reviewers of full proposals Panel meeting + interview (StG and CoG) Ranked list of proposals STEP 2 Feedback to applicants Right balance between generalist + specialized review Appropriate treatment of interdisciplinary proposals How ERC research proposals are evaluated? Evaluation of proposals: review procedure │ 20

Established by the European Commission PART A – online forms A1 Proposal and PI info A2 Host Institution info A3 Budget PART B2 – submitted as.pdf Scientific Proposal 15 p. Annexes – submitted as.pdf HI support letter copy of PhD (StG, CoG); document for extension of eligibility window (StG, CoG ) PART B1 – submitted as.pdf Extended Synopsis 5 p. CV 2 p. Early Achievements (StG and CoG) or 10-year Track Record (AdG) 2 p. How to prepare and submit an ERC research proposal? Proposal structure Read the Information to Applicants │ 21

Established by the European Commission Evaluation of excellence at two levels: Excellence of the Research Project Ground breaking nature Potential impact Scientific Approach Excellence of the Principal Investigator Intellectual capacity Creativity Commitment How ERC research proposals are evaluated? Excellence is the sole evaluation criterion │ 22

Established by the European Commission │ 23 * Number of instances that experts of a certain country of origin are contributing to the ERC peer review FP7 ERC Panel Members by Country of HI and Gender

Established by the European Commission │ Calls: Age of applicants

Established by the European Commission │ Calls: Age of grantees

Established by the European Commission Extensions of eligibility window possible for StG and CoG for documented cases of: Maternity – 18 months per child (before or after PhD) Paternity – actual time taken off Military service Medical speciality training Caring for seriously ill family members No limit to the total extension Extensions of eligibility window

Established by the European Commission │ 27 STG 2015 Funded proposals by gender Success rates by years past PhD

Established by the European Commission COG 2015 funded by proposals gender Success rates by years past PhD

Established by the European Commission A few tips and advice (1/2) Be ambitious and "daring"; panels instructed to seek out high-risk research Grab interest and attention of readers/ reviewers Remember that Part B1 will be seen by "generalists" (panel members) If you make it to Step 2, reviewers see both B1 and B2, so do not repeat / duplicate part B1 in part B2 Do not include unnecessary partners and collaborators; it is not supposed to be a "consortium"

Established by the European Commission Some tips and advice (1/2) For interviews (StG and CoG):  Get Panel Members interested in you and what you are doing  Practice thoroughly, several (many?) times; typically a 10 minute presentation followed by minutes of questions  Panels want to see that these are your ideas, not those of your supervisor  It is normal to be nervous…

Established by the European Commission │ 31 ERC ACHIEVEMENTS

Established by the European Commission Jean-Marie Lehn ERC Grantee AdG 2011 │ 32 Stanislav Smirnov AdG 2008 Simon DonaldsonAdG 2009 Elon LindenstraussAdG 2010 Other Prizes awarded to ERC grantees EMBO GOLD MEDAL 2011 – Simon BOULTON - AdG 2010 FEBS|EMBO WOMEN IN SCIENCE Carol ROBINSON - AdG 2010 EMBO GOLD MEDAL 2010 – Jason W CHIN - StG 2007 THE SHAW PRIZE IN MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES Christodoulou Demetrios - AdG 2009 CRAFOORD PRIZE 2011 and EUROPEAN LATSIS PRIZE 2010 – Ilkka Hanski - AdG 2008 L'ORÉAL-UNESCO AWARD FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE Anne L'Huillier - AdG 2008 WOLF PRIZE 2010 – Anton ZEILINGER, David BAULCOMBE - AdG 2008, Alain ASPECT - AdG 2010 MILLENIUM AWARD 2010 – Michael GRATZEL - AdG Prizes awarded to ERC grantees EMBO GOLD MEDAL 2012 Jiri FRIML - StG 2011 BALZAN PRIZE 2012 David BAULCOMBE - AdG 2008 EUROPEAN LATSIS PRIZE 2012 Uffe HAAGERUP - AdG 2009 KELVIN PRIZE 2012 Colin McINNES - AdG 2008 LEIBNIZ PRIZE 2012 Michael BRECHT - AdG 2008 & Joerg WRACHTRUP - AdG 2010 James Heckman ERC Grantee AdG 2010 Theodor Hansch ERC Grantee AdG 2010 Christoforos Pissarides ERC Grantee AdG 2012 Andre Geim ERC Grantee AdG Wolf Prize awarded to Peter Zoller - SyG Holberg Prize awarded to Bruno Latour - AdG Crafoord Prize awarded to Lars Klareskog - AdG 2009 Ada Yonath ERC Grantee AdG 2012 Konstantin Novoselov ERC Grantee StG 2007 Serge Haroche ERC Grantee AdG 2009 ERC achievements Highly distinguished grantees ERC Grantee SyG 2012

Established by the European Commission │ 33 May-Britt Moser ERC Grantee AdG 2010 The Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine 2014 was awarded to May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser, together with John O'Keefe, "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain”. The research leading to these discoveries was supported by FP5. ( "Spatial Representation in the Entorhinal Cortex” Science 2004) Edvard Moser ERC Grantee AdG 2013 ERC Grantee AdG 2008 The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2014 was awarded to Jean Tirole "for his analysis of market power and regulation". Jean Tirole ERC Grantee AdG 2009 Two of the Fields Medals 2014 awarded to researchers based in Europe: Artur Avila "for his work in dynamical systems” and to Martin Hairer “for his work on stochastic singularities”. Artur Avila ERC Grantee StG 2010 Martin Hairer ERC Grantee CoG Distinctions to ERC Grantees

Established by the European Commission After 8 Years, a Success Story  Highly recognised by the research community  Over top researchers funded during FP7 ( )  65% are at an early-career stage  Other 937 researchers supported after the three ERC calls of 2014  66 nationalities represented  Highly competitive (overall success rate tending to 10%)  Working in almost 600 different institutions in 32 countries  50% of grantees in 50 institutions : “Excellence attracts excellence”  Benchmarking effect: impact on national programmes and agencies; national funding for best "runners-up"  Efficient and fast grant management │ 34

Established by the European Commission │ 35 ERC 5000 th Grantee  On June 16, ERC celebrated its 5000 th grantee Principal Investigator: Dr Iva Tolić Host institution: Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb ERC call: Consolidator Grant 2014 ERC funding: € 2.15 million for five years © Iva Tolić "A new class of microtubules in the spindle exerting forces on kinetochores" (NEWSPINDLEFORCE) With her ERC grant Dr Iva Tolić wants to push forward the frontiers of knowledge on the mechanical principles of cell division. After spending several years in the USA, Denmark, Italy and Germany, she has moved back to Croatia where she is setting her new research team.

Established by the European Commission │ 36 ERC Delivers  publications acknowledging ERC support by September 2014  7% of these publications were in the top 1% most cited in their scientific field and year of publication  20% of completed LS and PE projects reported at least one patent (on average 2 patents reported per project)

Established by the European Commission │ 37 Distribution of ERC grants

Established by the European Commission │ 38 Priority to Young Scientists Two-thirds of ERC grants to early-stage Principal Investigators PhD and post-doc researchers working in ERC teams.

Established by the European Commission ERC grants per country of HI – top end *) First legal signatories of the first grant agreement taken into account average

Established by the European Commission ERC grants per country of HI – bottom end *) First legal signatories of the first grant agreement taken into account average

Established by the European Commission │ 41 Talents are everywhere

Established by the European Commission Success Rates per Country of HI (FP7) *) First legal signatories of the first grant agreement taken into account average

Established by the European Commission │ 43 FP7 ERC Grant Distribution vs. Public R&D Expenditure

Established by the European Commission │ 44 FP7 ERC Grants versus Top Publications *) Host institution refers to the current host organisation of the grant; data as of 02/06/2015 FP7 ERC: 4,354 frontier research projects funded

Established by the European Commission │ 45 ERC grants by PI nationality and HI country: Grantees at home and abroad (2007 – 2014)

Established by the European Commission Top European Institutions Hosting at least 30 ERC Grantees by Funding Schemes StG/CoG AdG First legal signatories of the grant agreement

Established by the European Commission │ 47 General problems Overall success rate is too low (about 10%) – many very good applications are not funded – solution is clear – increased ERC budget Interdiciplinary projects are diffucult to assess Some engineering and technology areas are missing or modestly covered EU 13 countries are not successful – their success is even declining

Established by the European Commission │ 48 ERC 2016 CALLS Deadlines 2016 StG: Closed 17 Nov 2015: 2935 submissions (+0.5% 2015) CoG: Opened 15 Oct 2015, deadline 2 February 2016 ~ 2300 submissions AdG: Opens 24 May 2016, deadline 1 September 2016 PoC: Opened 22 October 2015 Cut-off dates: 16 February May October 2016 Grantees only may apply

Established by the European Commission For further information … ERC Web site: Documents: ERC Work Programme (published annually) Information for Applicants (published with each call) National Contact Points European Commission Research Participant Portal

Established by the European Commission Thank you for your attention! Kaari Saarma