Grants Factory: ERC Masterclass

Thursday 9 Nov, 12pm-2pm

Cornwallis LT3 (COLT3), Canterbury campus

Our last ERC masterclass

The ERC​ or European Research Council is the gold standard of European research funding. There are no research boundaries or priorities, all topics are supported from arts to medicine, from social science to engineering. Each year hundreds of the very best researchers are supported by the ERC to pursue their own, transformative research ideas in Europe. They are, quite simply, 'career-making' grants.

If you are thinking of applying to the ERC in 2018 this is the time to start preparing, particularly for the ERC Consolidator call. 

Figures behind the Figures: Dr Heather Ferguson

Each term I feature a different Kent award winner in the Research Services newsletter, looking at their research and discussing their career path and funding track record. I thought it would be worth adding these to the Blog. In April I featured Dr Natalia Sobrevilla Perea. This time the spotlight falls on Dr Heather Ferguson in the School of Psychology.

Dr Heather Ferguson

How to Prepare a Successful ERC Application

Last Wednesday we hosted Maribel Glogowski, our UKRO representative, who gave a thoughtful overview of the European Research Council (ERC) and offered insights into how best to target the funder. Dr Heather Ferguson, who recently won a Starting Grant, joined her to offer an invaluable viewpoint from someone who had been through the process.

Background

The ERC has been one of the great success stories of the EC's Framework Programme. The prestigious, responsive mode fellowships were clearly what the European research community wanted, and this was demonstrated in the heavy oversubscription of the first call for Starting Grants in 2007, when over 9,000 people applied for just 300 awards, giving a success rate of just 3.4%.

Since then the situation has settled down, and now the Starting Grant success rate is actually broadly in line with that of the ESRC at 12%. In Horizon 2020, the ERC is part of the 'Excellent Science' pillar, which funds responsive mode research. Of the total €24.2bn budget for the pillar, the ERC has almost half (€13.1bn). It provides five types of grants:

●     Starting Grants: up to €2m for 5 years for investigators 2-7 years from PhD

●     Consolidator Grants: up to €2.75m for 5 years for investigators 7-14 years from PhD

●     Advanced Grants: up to €3.5m for 5 years (no set career point restriction, but investigators must be well established leaders in their fields)

●     Synergy Grants: up to €15m for 2-4 investigators. The scheme is currently on hold.

●     Proof of Concept Grants: for ERC award holders: up to €150k for 18 months.