│ 1 European Research Council The European Research Council Grants Program Analysis of Results from first StG and AdG competitions, and a forward look Fotis Kafatos ERC President Weizmann Institute of Science Rehovot, 16 December 2009

│ 2 European Research Council Overview

│ 3 European Research Council Jack Metthey ERC Executive Agency Director ad interim │ 3 The ERC Board Linking strategy and operations Prof. Fotis Kafatos ERC President Prof. Helga Nowotny Dr. Daniel Esteve ERC Vice-Presidents Prof. Andreu Mas-Colell ERC Secretary-General

│ 4 European Research Council Frontier research based solely on excellence Open competition of outstanding individuals of all nationalities and ages willing to stay/move and do research in Europe (*) (*) minimum 50% time in Europe, and 30% time on project Europe = 39 countries of European Research Area (ERA)  Ambitious, well-funded grants (StG up to €2 mil / AdG up to €3.5 mil)  No quotas per country/region, gender, etc.  All fields supported: 3 Domains (humanities to engineering)  Encourage new fields, bottom up The ERC paradigm researcher proposal

│ 5 European Research Council │ 5 ERC Grant schemes ERC Grant schemes Two complementary funding schemes ERC Starting Grant (StG): attract & retain the next generation of independent research leaders - up to € 2.0 Mio for 5 years  Support researchers at the start of their independent research career and establishing or consolidating their own independent research team (or research programme)  Provide a structure for transition from working under a supervisor to an independent research leader ERC Advanced Grant (AdG): attract & reward established independent research leaders - up to € 3.5 Mio for 5 years  Designed to support excellent investigator-initiated frontier research projects by established independent research leaders  Targeting researchers who have already established their independence as team leaders and are exceptional leaders in terms of significance of their research achievements (in the last 10 years)

│ 6 European Research Council ERC budget: € 1 billion/year (on average) ERC budget Averages to € 1 billion/year But less than 0.5% of R&D spending in Europe Compare with US Research Councils NSF  $ 6.85 billion (2009) NIH  $ 30.5 billion (2009) EU-12 & EU-15 funds come from: National & regional funding agencies, industry, local institutions

│ 7 European Research Council To become competitive, ERC budget increases by € 250 M€ / year

│ 8 European Research Council Physical Sciences & Engineering Social Sciences & Humanities Life Sciences ERC awards: StG 2007 Principal Investigators Distribution of 299 grants

│ 9 European Research Council │ 9 ERC awards: AdG 2008 similar clustering of 275 successful PIs Physical Sciences & Engineering Status Social Sciences & Humanities Life Sciences Interdisciplinary Total first StG/AdG awards 574

│ 10 European Research Council ERC StG-07, StG-09 & AdG-08, AdG-09 The top twenty most successful Host Institutions (ranked after total budget of grants received) ISRAEL SWITZERLAND Isreal and Switzerland: Two highly successful small countries Isreal and Switzerland: Two highly successful small countries

│ 11 European Research Council ERC grants by IL host NB: AdG-09 not complete

│ 12 European Research Council ERC StG 2007 & ERC StG 2009 Success rate by country of host institution (i.e. ratio submitted / selected proposals) ERC Starting Grant 2009 ERC Starting Grant 2007

│ 13 European Research Council ERC AdG 2008 & ERC AdG 2009 Success rate by country of host institution (i.e. ratio submitted / selected proposals) ERC Advanced Grant 2009 ERC Advanced Grant 2008

│ 14 European Research Council Data for: StG-07 AdG-08 StG-09 M Antonoyiannakis, J Hemmelskamp and FC Kafatos, Cell 136, 805 (6 March 2009) Success scales with country’s R&D investment Invest to succeed ! (grants to host country)

│ 15 European Research Council Israel (4.71% of GDP) Sweden (3.86%) Finland (3.43%) Switzerland (2.93%) Iceland (2.83%) Germany (2.51%) Austria (2.43%) Denmark (2.44%) France (2.13%) Belgium (1.82%) Netherlands (1.78%) UK (1.76%) Luxembourg (1.56%) Norway (1.51%) Czech Rep (1.42%) Ireland (1.25%) Slovenia (1.22%) Spain (1.12%) Italy (1.10%) Disparate national policies: A major challenge Variable R&D intensity (as % of GDP) Europe (ERA) must be competitive as a continent, but also as individual member states (2005 data) R&D intensity: 10-fold differences within ERA Meanwhile… Japan 3.17% Korea 2.99% USA 2.67% EU 1.84% China 1.4% China to overtake the EU in 2009! Hungary (0.94%) Portugal (0.80%) Lithuania (0.76%) Turkey (0.67%) Greece (0.61%) Malta (0.60%) Latvia (0.57%) Poland (0.57%) Slovakia (0.51%). Bulgaria (0.48%) Cyprus (0.40%) Romania (0.39%) high medium low

│ 16 European Research Council Considering research spending in the current financial difficulties as a luxury is a "major mistake”. The principal problem in reaching the 3% goal [is] getting member states to commit to higher targets of national funding to supplement European funds from FP7. "To put it simply, the best way to succeed is to increase capacity at home. I know that's easier said than done but it is important for all member states." "We noticed a strong and interesting correlation between domestic investment in R&D and success rate in FP7," Mr Potočnik observed. Outgoing Research Commissioner Janez Potočnik on BBC News, 8 May 2009 Research spending: A necessity, not a luxury

│ 17 European Research Council StG AdG 2008: mobility of researchers 574 grants, 24 host countries, 32 nationalities Which countries attract which researchers? Relocating (from any country to host) Staying country’s citizens Principle Investigators (PIs) Non-European, staying European, staying Country’s citizens, staying All countries attract their citizens – 6 (UK, CH, ES, FR, NL, DE) also strongly non-citizens

│ 18 European Research Council │ 18 ERC StG 2007 & ERC AdG 2008 Age distribution of grantees Young investigators as intended, Steep PI pyramid Established investigators Broad age distribution

│ 19 European Research Council Overall success rates for women roughly follow distribution of junior / senior professorships in Europe NB: Length of error bars = +/- 2 σ

│ 20 European Research Council  Both StG and AdG budgets will increase from  2010  526 M€ for StG ……. 590 M€ for AdG  2010  Enlarge time-window of StG eligibility (becomes now 2-10 yrs post-PhD)  But separately evaluate True Starters / Consolidators to be fair to both sub-categories  Executive Agency operational & autonomous in 2009: Approx. 270 staff, 45 PhD scientists Future plans

│ 21 European Research Council Ongoing developments ERC Director position now open!! “A distinguished scientist with robust administrative experience” Position combines current posts of Director of Executive Agency and Secretary General See com2009_10222_en.pdf com2009_10222_en.pdf or contact Dr. Jack Metthey ERCEA Director ad interim Tel: +32 (0)2 / ERC Director position now open!! “A distinguished scientist with robust administrative experience” Position combines current posts of Director of Executive Agency and Secretary General See com2009_10222_en.pdf com2009_10222_en.pdf or contact Dr. Jack Metthey ERCEA Director ad interim Tel: +32 (0)2 /