1. European Research Council For operational reasons : 25 panels in 3 main domains PE: Physical Sciences, Engineering (10 panels) LS: Life Sciences (9 panels) SH: Social Sciences and Humanities (6 panels) Plus one horizontal domain: Interdisciplinary Allocation of Call budget per domain as follows: PE domain: 39% (40%) LS domain: 34% (35%) SH domain : 14% (15%) Interdisciplinary domain: 13% (10%) Within domains, indicative budget is allocated to panels on a demand basis ► probability of success independent of panel Scientific Domains

2. European Research Council Social Sciences and Humanities  SH1 Individuals, institutions & markets  SH2 Institutions, values, beliefs and behaviour  SH3 Environment & society  SH4 The Human Mind and its complexity  SH5 Cultures & cultural production  SH6 The study of the human past Physical Sciences & Engineering  PE1 Mathematical foundations  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 ERC Panel Structure: 25 Panels

3. European Research Council │ 3 Two step Evaluation Step 1: Only Part B1 is evaluated (PI and Project) Evaluated by Panel Members and members of other panels (if interdisciplinary) Proposals need to pass threshold to be retained to next Step Only highly ranked proposals (and within 2-3 times the available budget for each Panel) are retained for step 2 Step 2 Both Part B1 and B2 are evaluated against all three evaluation criteria Proposals are evaluated by Panel Members and Remote Referees nominated by Panel Members

4. European Research Council Scientific Excellence is the sole criterion Only the criteria published in the Call are applied Evaluation of excellence at 3 levels: Quality of principal investigator Quality of the research project Quality of research environment (at step 2) Referees and panels evaluate and score criteria 1 & 2 numerically which results in the ranking of the projects: 1-4 per criterion threshold ≥ 2 per criterion Criteria 3 is considered as "pass/fail" 4: oustanding 3: excellent 2: very good 1: non-competitive Evaluation on Excellence

5. European Research Council Potential of the Principal Investigator: (last 10 years for AdG) Quality of research output (track record, qualification, achievements, independence, reputation) Intellectual capacity and creativity (collaborations, mentoring, challenge confrontation, initiative for new lines of thinking) and capacity to attract funding (AdG) Quality of the research project: Ground-breaking nature (challenges, ambition, trans-discipinarity, new concepts) Potential impact (open new horizons, enhance frontier research in Europe) Methodology (approach, timescale, resources, feasibility) High risk/high gain balance (new or unconventional methodology, major breakthrough) Research environment: Contribution to the project (infrastructural and intellectual environment) Participation of other legal entities (if added value to the proposal) Evaluation Criteria

6. European Research Council Interdisciplinarity Novel interdisciplinary approaches can open potentials for new fields of science and can contribute to the excellence of a proposal To overcome traditional, discipline-based review systems in fairly evaluating interdisciplinary proposals ERC has a specific approach (mainstreaming; Interdisciplinary Domain): ERC panels may only loosely follow disciplinary lines Proposals can be assigned to members of other panels and to freely-chosen referees to better match expertise 13% of the budget is allocated to an ‘Interdisciplinary Domain’

7. European Research Council Review Process Remote assessment by Panel members of section 1 Panel meeting Proposals retained for step 2 STEP 1 Remote assessment by Panel members and reviewers of all sections Panel meeting + interview (StG) Ranked list of proposals STEP 2 Consolidating Panel chairs meeting Feedback to applicants

8. European Research Council │ 8 ERC Starting Grant: 2007, 2009, 2010 Submissions by call & domain - 72.7% + 14.8%

9. European Research Council 299 successful proposals Awarded budget about € 335 million 559 proposals 8794 proposals evaluated (9167 submitted!) Interviews ERC Starting Grant 2007 Two Step Evaluation Process 3.4% Success Rate* *Based on evaluated proposals only

10. European Research Council ERC Starting Grant: 2007 call Eligible proposals by host country & gender Source: 8794 evaluated proposals

11. European Research Council 2 59 25 2 38 26 4 24 1 6 11 27 1 7 1 4 14 4 2 10 32 Source: 300 proposals, 02.10.2008 ERC Starting Grant: 2007 call Selected proposals by host countries

12. European Research Council 237 successful proposals Awarded budget about € 325 million 457 proposals 2392 proposals evaluated (2503 submitted) Interviews ERC Starting Grant 2009 Two Step Evaluation Process 9.91% Success Rate* *Based on evaluated proposals only

13. European Research Council ERC Starting Grant 2009 Submitted proposals by country of host institution & gender

14. European Research Council StG 07-299, 05 Dec. 2008 Source: StG-09 mainlist: 219, 25.06.2009 3 17 3 15 2 14 1 15 6 2 1 5 16 7 5 26 41 ERC Starting Grant: 2009 call Successful proposals by country of host institution Source: 219 selected proposals

15. European Research Council ERC Starting Grant: 2007 call Success rate of host countries Relation between submitted proposals (9167) and 300 selected proposals (02.10.2008) Italy

16. European Research Council Statistics 2009 Submissions by nationality of PI  Submissions of Italian PI:  20.5 % of European  (population 12.6 %)  Submissions of Italian PI in Italian HI:  80 % of the submission from italian PI  (bigger than in similar countries)

17. European Research Council 275 successful proposals Awarded budget about € 542 million 648 proposals 2034 proposals evaluated (2167 submitted) ERC Advanced Grant 2008 Two Step Evaluation Process 13.52% Success Rate

18. European Research Council 1 56 13 1 32 18 4 1 14 1 4 5 16 2 9 1 1 8 26 4 1 13 25 ERC Advanced Grant: 2008 call Top 256 candidates by host countries Source: 256 selected proposals (29 Sept. 2008)

19. European Research Council ERC Starting and Advanced grants: Host institutions in Italy and number of grants Universita’ di Bologna (1) CENTRO EURO-MEDITERRANEO PER I CAMBIAMENTI CLIMATICI SCARL (1) Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (8) IFOM FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO FIRC DI ONCOLOGIA MOLECOLARE (2) Istituto Europeo di Oncologia S.r.l.(2) Politecnico di Milano (3) SISSA (2) Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (3) LUISS (1) European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy (2) Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (2) Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (2) Universita’ di Milano Bicocca (1) Universita’ di Napoli (2) Università degli Studi di Padova (2) Università degli studi di Parma (3) Universita’ di Pavia (2) Universita’ di Roma ‘La Sapienza’ (7) Universita’ di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’ (2) Universita di Roma Tre (2) Sincrotrone Trieste SCpA European Brain Research Institute Fondazione Centro San Raffaele del Monte Tabor (4) Fondazione ISI Fondazione Telethon (2) Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (3 grants) Universita degli Studi di Firenze (2) …………