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# 52013DC0318

**REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT on the European Research Council's operations and realisation of the objectives set out in the Specific Programme "Ideas" in 2012 /\* COM/2013/0318 final \*/**

  

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE
COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

on the European Research Council's
operations and realisation of the objectives set out in the Specific Programme
"Ideas" in 2012

1.           Introduction and Legal Base

The European Research Council (ERC),
established by Commission Decision 2007/134/EC[1], has as its
essential task the implementation of the Specific Programme "Ideas",
with an overall budget of € 7.51 billion.

The ERC consists of an independent
Scientific Council supported by a dedicated implementation structure, which
took the form of the ERC Executive Agency (ERCEA), created under the general
regime of executive agencies[2].
Responsibility for implementing the "Ideas" programme and supporting
the Scientific Council was delegated to the Agency by the Commission in 2008
and autonomy was granted to the Agency in July 2009.

In conformity with Article
4.4 and Annex I of the Council Decision on the Specific Programme
"Ideas", this Annual Report of the Commission, drawn up in
co-operation with the ERC Scientific Council and the ERC Executive Agency,
presents the Commission's assessment of the ERC's operations and the
achievement of its objectives in 2012. This report is complemented by a report
from the Scientific Council on the scientific implementation and achievements
of the programme during the year 2012[3].

2.           Strategy Matters

The Scientific Council is responsible for
setting the ERC's scientific strategy, including establishing the ERC's most
important strategy document, the annual Ideas Work Programme.

2.1.        Types
of action

Two types of grant form the core of the
Ideas Work Programme:

Starting Grants, supporting researchers at the early stage of their careers, with
the aim of providing working conditions that enable them to become independent
research leaders.

Advanced Grants, designed to support outstanding and established research leaders
by providing resources necessary to enable them to continue the work of their
teams, seeking new breakthroughs in their line of research.

An additional granting opportunity – the Proof of Concept – is offered to ERC
grant holders to establish the innovation potential of ideas arising from their
ERC-funded projects. It aims to cover a funding gap in the earliest stage of an
innovation.

In 2012, the Scientific Council introduced,
on a pilot basis, the Synergy Grants, addressed to small groups of Principal Investigators and
their teams. In contrast to
consortia, the Synergy Grant targets individual investigators whose
complementary skills, knowledge and resources enable them to jointly address
research problems at the frontier of knowledge, going beyond what the
individual researchers could achieve alone. Synergy Grants follow the strict
ERC excellence-only approach, and are open to proposals from all fields of
science and scholarship.

2.2.        2012
Work Programme for the Specific Programme "Ideas"

The 2012 Work Programme for the Specific
Programme "Ideas" was established by the Scientific Council on 21
March 2011 and subsequently adopted by the Commission on 19 July 2011[4].

Apart from the introduction of the Synergy
Grants, few adjustments were made in the scientific strategy and they relate to
the peer review: interdisciplinary proposals are now
evaluated by the panel indicated by the applicant, with the assistance of other
relevant panels; and a new "scoring" system (A, B or C accompanied by
the rank of the proposal) was introduced to provide better feedback to
applicants.

2.3.        Peer
review methodology

The ERC employs a structure of high-level peer review panels whose
members are selected by the Scientific Council and include scientists,
engineers and scholars from both within the EU and beyond. These panels cover
all research disciplines and are organised in a framework of three main
research domains: Physical Sciences and Engineering, Life Sciences, and Social
Sciences and Humanities. Consistent with previous calls, the number of panels
was 25 for both Starting and Advanced Grants. Proof of Concept proposals were
evaluated by a specific set of peer reviewers working
remotely. The Synergy Grants were evaluated by five different panels in a 2-step evaluation procedure specifically designed for this
purpose.

3.           Programme Implementation

In the implementation of the Programme in 2012,
commitment credits of €1.6 billion (global commitment) and payments of €871 million were fully
executed, representing 100% of the operational credits of the Ideas Specific
Programme for 2012. Around 2.4% of the operational
budget was spent on administration.

3.1.        Grants

Since the 2008 Work Programme, ERC calls
involve a one-stage submission process, where applicants are required to submit
their full proposal, and a two-step evaluation.

Grants are offered to the best proposals
depending on the budget available. The offer is made on the basis of the
proposal itself and the funding recommended by the peer review evaluation.

3.1.1.     ERC
Starting Grants

The 2012 ERC Starting Grant call was
published in July 2011 with an indicative budget of €730 million (representing
a 10% increase compared to 2011). In total, 4741 proposals were received,
distributed by domain as follows: 2058 proposals in Physical Sciences and
Engineering (43%), 1653 in Life Sciences (35 %) and 1030 (22 %) in Social
Sciences and Humanities. A total of 566 proposals were selected for funding.
More than €790 million was awarded with an overall average grant size of around
€1.4 million.

The 2013 Starting Grant call was published
in July 2012 for applicants qualifying as ‘starters’ (i.e. Principal
Investigators that have been awarded their first PhD at least 2 and up to 7
years from the call date) with an indicative budget of €398 million. A total of
3329 proposals were submitted: 1486 in Physical Sciences and Engineering, 1073
in Life Sciences and 770 in Social Sciences and Humanities, representing
respectively 45%, 32% and 23%. A small, but constant, increase of the share of
proposals in Physical Sciences and Engineering can be noticed from 41% in 2011
to 43% in 2012 and 45% in 2013.

3.1.2.     ERC
Advanced Grants

The 2012 ERC Advanced Grant call was
published in November 2011 with an indicative budget of €680 million. A total
of 2304 proposals were received, distributed by domain as follows: 978
proposals in Physical Sciences and Engineering (42%), 773 in Life Sciences
(34%) and 553 in Social Sciences and Humanities (24%). The evaluation process
resulted in a total of 313 proposals being retained for funding for a total of
about €720 million and an overall average grant size of around €2.3 million.

The 2013 ERC Advanced Grant call was
published in July 2012 with an indicative budget of €662 million. A total of
2408 proposals were submitted: 1053 in Physical Sciences and Engineering, 788
in Life Sciences and 567 in Social Sciences and Humanities, representing
respectively 44%, 33% and 23%. The share of Physical Sciences and Engineering
proposals increased from 40% in 2011 to 42% in 2012 and 44% in 2013.

3.1.3.     ERC Proof of Concept

In the first call for the Proof of Concept
(PoC) in 2011, a total of 51 grants were awarded, of which the final 22,
selected at the end of 2011, were announced in February 2012. The first 29
grants were announced in October 2011.

In 2012, a further 33 PoC grants were
awarded at the May deadline and another 27 at the October deadline, bringing
the total number of PoCs selected for granting by the end of 2012 to 111.

3.1.4.     Synergy Grants

The first call for Synergy Grants attracted
710 applications, which were assessed following an evaluation procedure
specifically designed for this purpose. In an extremely competitive call, 11
projects were finally selected in December 2012 to receive funding for up to 6
years. The average Synergy Grant selected for funding is worth €11.5 million
and the total budget allocated in 2012 was €126 million. As each Synergy Grant
project involves between two and four Principal Investigators, 38 outstanding researchers
are being supported through these 11 grants. The high number of proposals
received attests to a very substantial interest from the scientific community
for this new type of grant.

3.2.        Co-operation between the
ERC and the NSF

On 13 July 2012, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European
Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, and Dr Subra Suresh,
Director of the National Science Foundation of USA (NSF), signed an
''implementing arrangement'' in the framework of the EU-US Science and Technology
Agreement. This initiative is designed to help young top talent, based in the
U.S. and pre-selected by the NSF, to spend some time – between 6 and 12 months
– in Europe, hosted as members of ERC grantees' teams. To date, 2330 ERC
grantees have been contacted and 760 positive replies have been received. The
initiative aims to connect researchers with shared interests and complementary
strengths in their endeavour to advance the frontiers of science and to enhance
scientific and technological cooperation between the two continents.

3.3.        Programme
Committee

The Programme Committee of the Specific
Programme "Ideas" serves, in addition to its formal duties, as an
important communication network between the Member States and FP7 Associated
Countries, the Scientific Council, the ERC Secretary General and the
Commission. In 2012 meetings of this committee were held on 18 April and 12 October.

3.4.        Ethical
review

In 2012 three
proposals involving research on Human Embryonic Stem Cells were cleared
following an ethics review and obtained the approval of the Ideas Programme Committee.
Another three proposals underwent ethics review and are currently under
consideration by the Ideas Programme committee.

3.5.        Redress

In 2012, the total number of redress cases
decreased from 234 to 204 (- 13%), despite the fact that in 2012 the total
number of proposals increased by 21.24 %. This number, representing 2.58% of
the proposals received, indicates a positive downward trend of redress cases, thanks
to the continuous improvement of working methods and compliance with procedures.

3.6.        Communication

In February 2012, the
ERC celebrated its 5th anniversary, an occasion for presenting its
achievements so far. The two-day event brought together policy makers and
beneficiaries of ERC grants. Three European Commissioners, the European
Parliament's ITRE President, the Danish Science Minister representing the EU
Presidency, and the ERC leadership had the opportunity to listen to research
results, success stories and, more importantly, plans for the future.

In 2012, the Scientific Council launched the "ERC
goes Global" campaign, headed by the ERC Secretary General Professor Donald
Dingwell. In less than a year, he visited 26 cities in 9 countries and has
given 70 presentations. National Contact Points (NCP) are being set up in the
wake of these visits and two of them (Brazil, Taiwan) have attended the annual
NCP meeting in Brussels in November. The ERC was present for the first time at
the Annual Meeting of the New Champions (also known as Summer Davos) held in
China. In North America, the ERC attended the NSF career fair and the MIT
European career fair, the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS) conference, and the annual meetings of the American Association for
Cancer Research, Society for Neuroscience, the American Anthropological
Association and the American Geophysical Union.

In addition to initiatives aimed at raising
the visibility of ERC’s funding opportunities at a global level, the ERC
increased its presence in major international scientific conferences, events
and exhibitions, as well as career fairs and workshops in Europe. The ERC
President, Professor Helga Nowotny attended the European Excellence Conference
2012 organised in Aarhus under the Danish Presidency and the Falling Walls
Conference in Berlin. Additional conferences were attended by Scientific
Council members and ERCEA staff, where an ERC stand or session was organised to
inform of ERC funding opportunities: the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF)
conference held in Dublin, the Lindau Nobel Laureates’ meeting, the Nature Jobs
Career Fair, the World Congress of Political Sciences and the European Congress
of Mathematics, to name but a few.

The national contact points (NCPs), based
across Europe, serving as information multipliers to potential applicants, were
continuously kept informed about ERC calls via e-mail and through biannual
meetings organised in Brussels, in June and November.

This year, the ERC has received extensive
media coverage worldwide and in Europe, both as a funding organisation and
through its funded projects and its grant holders. Through its "ERC goes
Global" campaign, it has intensified its efforts in international press
relations, which resulted in more coverage around the globe than ever before.
The landmark event on the occasion of the ERC’s fifth anniversary also
attracted a great deal of media attention and so did the Nobel laureates’
initiative against possible cuts in the EU research budget, where the ERC was
mentioned as a European success story. In addition to the media events
organised throughout the year, the ERC regularly issued press releases and
updates. Numerous press interviews with the ERC President, the ERC
Secretary-General and Scientific Council members have been published. These
press activities have resulted in a significant number of articles in both the
scientific and the general press (over 2100 mentions). Concerning the presence
of the ERC on social media, a Facebook account and a Twitter account were
launched in 2012. The ERC has more than 1 100 followers on Facebook and more
than 1 800 followers on Twitter.

3.7.        Monitoring, Assessment and
Evaluation of the Specific Programme "Ideas"

An evaluation
of the ERC main results was prepared in conjunction with the ex-ante impact
assessment of the Commission's proposal on Horizon 2020, the next Framework
Programme for Research and Innovation[5].
Findings from the continuous monitoring of the programme include the following:

·
The ERC counts five Nobel laureates and three
Fields Medalists among its grant holders. A total of 76 ERC grantees have
received other prestigious international scientific prizes and awards.

·
Over 7900 articles acknowledging ERC-funding have
appeared in peer-reviewed high impact journals between 2008 and 2012.

·
Each ERC grantee employs on average six other
researchers, contributing in this way to the training of a new generation of
excellent researchers.

·
The analysis of a significant sample of projects
shows that around half of ERC team members hold a nationality that is different
from that of the Principal Investigator. ERC team members come from 38 of the
41 European Research Area (ERA) countries. In addition, researchers of 55 different
nationalities outside the ERA are present in the teams working on ERC projects,
with Americans, Chinese, Indians and Russians taking the lead.

·
The same analysis shows positive figures in terms
of gender balance: around 37% of ERC team members are women, which is a higher
share than the number of female ERC Principal Investigators (20%). The majority
of these women are at the start of their research career, so this can be seen
as an encouraging sign for a better representation of women in cutting-edge
research in the future.

In July 2012,
the ERC Executive Agency completed 3 years of autonomous existence and is
currently undergoing an external evaluation, which includes a cost-benefit
analysis. The evaluation report is expected in spring 2013 and will be
transmitted to the European Parliament, the Council and the Court of Auditors.

4.           Structure of the European Research
Council

4.1.        The Scientific Council

A staged renewal of the members of the
Scientific Council will take effect in February and April 2013. The standing
Identification Committee presented its proposals to the
Commission in July 2012 and its report[6]
was transmitted to Council and Parliament. Based on these proposals, the
Commission nominated as new members of the Scientific Council the following: Professor
Klaus Bock (Danish National Research Foundation), Professor Athene Donald (University
of Cambridge), Dr Barbara Ensoli (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome), Professor
Nuria Sebastian Galles (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona), Professor Reinhard
Genzel (Max Planck Institute for Extra-terrestrial Physics), Professor Dr Ing. Matthias
Kleiner (University of Dortmund), Professor Eva Kondorosi (Hungarian Academy of
Sciences) and Professor Dr Reinhilde Veugelers (KU Leuven)[7].

The Scientific Council held 5 plenary
meetings in 2012, two of which were held outside Brussels: in Sofia (Bulgaria)
in April and in Limassol (Cyprus) in October. The
summary of the plenary meetings is published on the ERC website[8].

The members of the Scientific Council also
met in Working Groups (WGs) addressing specific issues: innovation and
relations with industry, internationalisation, gender balance and open access.

In July 2012, the Scientific Council took a
further step to strengthen its policy on open access, by encouraging ERC-funded
researchers to use discipline-specific repositories. Since its creation, the
ERC has been a strong supporter of the idea that the wide range of research
results — including publications and primary data — should be made freely
accessible. In 2007, the Scientific Council laid down specific guidelines
requiring that all peer-reviewed publications springing from ERC-funded
projects be deposited on publication into appropriate research or institutional
repositories and subsequently made open access within 6 months of publication.

The Scientific Council has two Standing Committees,
one on peer review and one on conflict of interest, scientific misconduct and
ethical issues.

·
In May 2012, the ERC participated in the Global
Summit on merit (peer) review in Washington hosted by the National Science
Foundation (NSF). Heads of research councils from about 50 countries agreed
upon a set of merit review principles and established a Global Research Council
(GRC).

·
Based on the work of its committee on conflicts
of interest, scientific misconduct and ethical issues, at its plenary meeting
of 4 and 5 October 2012, the Scientific Council adopted a strategy for
identifying and addressing scientific misconduct concerning ERC applicants and
projects[9].
The strategy institutionalises what has been the ERC practice so far in dealing
with scientific misconduct. It ensures that all concerns about potential
scientific misconduct or suspected breaches of research integrity concerning an
ERC applicant or project will be addressed by the ERC within the legal and
procedural framework applicable to an agency established within the European
Commission framework.

The Scientific Council's plenary meetings
and the meetings of its members with ERC stakeholders are prepared with the
organisational and administrative support of the Executive Agency. The Agency
also provides advice and analysis to facilitate the Scientific Council to
fulfil its tasks as described in Annex 1 of the Ideas Specific
Programme, as well as support to the operational activities of its Working
Groups and Standing Committees.

To further assure its liaison with the
European Commission and the Executive Agency, the Chair and vice Chairs of the
Scientific Council, the ERC Secretary General and the Director of the Agency
meet regularly as the ERC Board. These meetings are also attended by the senior
management of the Agency. The Board met in Brussels 10 times in 2012, in
particular to prepare or to follow up the meetings of the Scientific Council.

4.2.        The ERC Executive Agency

Since July 2009 the Agency has been
responsible for all aspects of administrative implementation and programme
execution as provided for in the Work Programme.

The operations of the Agency are supervised
by a Steering Committee, appointed by the Commission. It is chaired by the
Director-General of DG Research and Innovation and includes as external members
two members of the Scientific Council. In 2012, the Steering Committee held
four meetings and adopted decisions related to the Agency's Annual Work
Programme, budget and accounts, as well as its organisational structure. Pablo
Amor was appointed Director of the ERC Executive Agency on 25 July 2012.

4.2.1.     Agency Staff

The 2012 operating budget provided for the
employment of 100 temporary agents, 281 contract staff and 8 seconded national
experts, adding up to a total of 389 agents.

At the end of December 2012, the agency
employed indeed a total of 380 agents: 96 temporary agents, 275 contract agents
and 9 seconded national experts.

Statistics of December 2012 show that the
agency employs approximately 35% men and 65% women. As regards the gender
balance of highly specialised staff (temporary agents and contract agents in Function
Group IV), 61% of the posts are occupied by women. At the end of 2012, the ERC
Executive Agency employed nationals from 26 Member States.

5.           Conclusions and Outlook for 2013

The year 2012 saw several significant
developments for the ERC. It was marked by the ERC’s fifth anniversary
celebration, the launch of the "ERC goes Global" campaign, the first
international agreement with the US National Science Foundation, an ERC Principal
Investigator winning the Nobel Prize for physics, and ERC grantees participating
in the Summer Davos meeting. By the end of 2012, the
ERC had completed ten calls for
proposals for the Starting and Advanced Grants, two calls for the Proof of
Concept and one for the Synergy Grants. The competitions yielded a total of
over 34000 proposals out of which more than 3500 have been selected for funding
through a rigorous peer review.

The year 2013 is eagerly awaited for the
decisions of the European Parliament and the Council on the Commission's
proposals for Horizon 2020, including an anticipated increase of funding for the
ERC.
Boosting the ERC budget will allow more top
researchers and their pioneering ideas to be supported, and especially younger
researchers to be provided with a long-term perspective.

Two further
developments are foreseen in 2013:

·
Since 2010, the Starting Grant has been
"streamed" to allow applicants to be compared with researchers of a
similar level. In general, “Starters” (from 2 and up to 7 years from their PhD
award) are still in the process of setting up their own research group, while
“Consolidators” (from 7 up to 12 years from their PhD award) are very often
already working with their own group, but need to consolidate. As a development
from this practice, and in response to the rapidly rising number of
applications for Starting Grants, the Scientific Council will introduce two
separate calls in the 2013 Work Programme[10].

·
In line with the recommendations of the ERC Task
Force, incorporated in its proposals for Horizon 2020, the Commission has set
up a high level independent search committee for the next ERC President[11]. Under Horizon 2020, the ERC
President will also ensure the tasks of the ERC Secretary General, will be
based in Brussels and devote most of her/his time to ERC activities. The search
committee, chaired by Lord Sainsbury of Turville, is expected to report to the
Commission in time for the appointment of the next ERC President upon the entry
into force of Horizon 2020.

[1]               OJ L 57, 24.02.2007, p.14.

[2]               2008/37/EC: Commission Decision of 14 December 2007
setting up the European Research Council Executive Agency for the management of
the specific Community programme Ideas in the field of frontier research in
application of Council Regulation (EC) No 58/2003 (OJ L9, 12.01.2008, p.15).

[3]               http://erc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/document/file/erc\_annual\_report\_2012.pdf

[4]               C(2011)4961 of 19.07.11, not published

[5]               COM(2011) 809 final of 30.11.2011

[6] http://erc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/document/file/ERC\_Identification\_Committee\_Final\_Report\_2012.pdf

[7]               C(2012) 9244 of 13.12.2012, OJ C 396 of 21.12.2012,
p.30

[8]               http://erc.europa.eu/about-erc/organisation

[9]               http://erc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/press\_release/files/ERC\_Scmisconduct\_Strategy.pdf

[10]             http://erc.europa.eu/documents/erc-work-programme-2013

[11]             http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release\_IP-12-1393\_en.htm

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