Yearly Archives / 2012

Updates from the BU REF Academic Leadership Team (RALT) meetings

BU research, Research assessment

The BU REF Academic Leadership Team (RALT) meets every month to discuss matters relating to BU’s preparations for its submission to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2013. The group is chaired by Matthew Bennett (Pro Vice-Chancellor) and consists of the 12 Unit of Assessment (UOA) Leaders, who are academics from across the different Schools in the University, the REF Communications Manager (Sally Gates), the Head of the Research & Knowledge Exchange Office (Julie Northam) and representatives from the BU REF Academic Steering Group (RASG). The meetings are administered and minuted by the Research Development Officer for the REF (Anita Somner/Peng Peng Ooi).

A summary of the most recent meetings is below for your information. The next meeting is scheduled for September due to staff taking their summer holidays (hopefully there will be some sunshine soon!).

17 May 2012

  • Feedback from external reviewers was presented by two UOA Leaders following the previous mock exercise on impact and environment over the winter 2011/2012.
  • The process for the current outputs mock exercise was outlined and deadlines given for returning all information prior to it being sent to the external reviewers.
  • An update was given on the BU REF Code of Practice and on the first phase of equality and diversity training for those involved in coordinating the REF at BU, which had recently taken place.
  • The REF Communication Manager gave an update on progress with developing the BU impact case studies and on the provision of social media training for academics.

18 June 2012

  • Progress with the collation of data for the outputs mock was discussed. Most of the paperwork had been received on time, which was great news!
  • Preparations for the full mock in spring 2013 were discussed along with the kind of support UOA Leaders might need.
  • Forthcoming REF deadlines for the provision of certain information ahead of the 2013 submission deadline were highlighted.
  • The REF Communications Manager gave a report on the outcomes of a series of meetings held recently with UOA Leaders discussing the BU impact case studies.

 

Funding for International Cooperation in the Film Industry (UK)

EU

The European Commission has announced that the call for proposals  for the year 2012 has been launched an EC Film Industry Call for projects taking place between the 1 February 2013 and 30 June 2014, in the fields of training, market access, distribution and circulation of audiovisual works. The European Union adopted a new MEDIA Mundus programme, a broad international cooperation programme for the audiovisual industry to strengthen cultural and commercial relations between Europe’s film industry and film-makers of third countries. The EU will provide €4,426 million of funding for projects submitted by audiovisual professionals from Europe and from third countries.  The closing date for applications is the 28 September 2012.

SDRC EUNF success

EU

Sustainable Design Research Centre (Zulfiqar Khan and Mark Hadfield) reported the success of BU EUNF application for funding on March 19th 2012 through the BU Blog. The award played a significant role to achieve the objectives of the original plan as

  • To initiate links for the proposed programme
  • Gauge interests in the identified partners in terms of the proposed research programme
  • Identify more industrial links for collaborations
  • Identify relevant resources and expertise
  • Identify the most relevant EU funding stream
  • Define goals for the proposed research
  • Apply for the EU consortium fund as a next milestone
  • Develop an EU/relevant funding body bid

Monday 2nd July 2012 was scheduled for the BU-Tank Museum EU Conference here at BU. A successful conference was held with key representatives from the following organisations

  • BU
  • The Tank Museum, Bovington, UK
  • Oxford University, UK
  • Military Museum, Munster Panzer Museum, Germany
  • Finnish Tank Museum, Finland
  • Swedish Tank Museum, Sweden
  • Belgian Military Museum
  • Military Museum, Dresden, Germany

It was planned to apply for EU networking/consortium funds to take off the proposal development process. Various actions were identified and linked with the expertise/resources. Following from the discussions it was agreed to define a roadmap for the newly formed consortium in terms of sustainable methodology of conserving historic military vehicles in the museum environments across EU.

The following relevant EU funding strands were identified as potential for targeting.

  • ARTEMIS Call 2012 was investigated to see if it was useful in terms of the research.
  • Strategies and Projects for Research & Innovation, Scientific & Management Partnerships in research and innovation, Open calls for proposals of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Development was investigated to identify relevant strand and specific call.
  • COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is one of the longest-running European frameworks supporting cooperation among scientists and researchers across Europe calls from this initiative were investigated.

COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) open call has been identified to be targeted for further research collaborative activities.

A proposal is currently being developed to submit an application to this call. A meeting with the Tank Museum Director Richard Smith, Professor Mark Hadfield and Dr Zulfiqar Khan has been scheduled on the 31st of July 2012 to start developing proposal for the above mentioned open call due by the end of September 2012.

This was a significant opportunity in terms of initiating new links across EU museums and key stakeholders. This also provided an influential platform for disseminating and promoting the existing research undertaken in collaboration with The Tank Museum. The newly formed collaborative links with the DSTL (MOD) has already yielded into a DEC-DSTL match funded PhD studentship which is a significant milestone Further links have already been followed to strengthen the newly developed group, which will be important in future funding applications and securing external income.

 

UK Environment White Paper update

The following link provides a useful update on the UK Government’s Environment White Paper, including a summary of current activities relating to its implementation. This includes a number of initatives relating both to the green economy and biodiversity conservation.

Link: http://sd.defra.gov.uk/2012/07/natural-environment-white-paper-one-year-on/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gov%2Fsdscene+%28SD+Scene%29

UK government’s new publication on the green economy

This might be a useful source for those wishing to learn more about the UK Government’s plans for the green economy

‘Enabling the Transition to a Green Economy: government and business working together’ is a new publication which sets out what the transition to a green economy means for businesses.

It is the government’s response to requests from the private sector for greater clarity on what government means by a “green economy”, the policies being put in place to achieve this and how they come together.

Link: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1096705244&type=ONEOFFPAGE&furlname=greeneconomy&furlparam=greeneconomy&ref=&domain=www.businesslink.gov.uk

 

Santander Universidades scheme – congratulations to Sheetal Sharma and Rami Mhanna!

PG research

Posted on behalf of Sheetal Sharma. For further information, please contact Sheetal at ssharma@bournemouth.ac.uk

On Wednesday 4 July 2012, two Bournemouth University PhD students, Sheetal Sharma and Rami Mhanna, attended a lunch reception at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden given by Santander, Mr. Emilio Botín (Executive Chairman of Spain’s Grupo Santander)  and Ms. Ana Patricia Botín  (CEO of Santander UK) where they met British Formula One drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jensen Button. After a morning meeting Santander scholarship students from all over the world, the drivers came in at 11am and spoke after an introduction by Mr. Botín. Lewis Hamilton spoke of his brother Nic who lives with cerebral palsy “I always say my brother is an inspiration to me, when we were doing competitive things together, he would fall over constantly and he’d just get back up and try again. He never ever gave up. And when I was growing up there weren’t many scholarships and opportunities to have a great chance to do something like this in higher education… It was a lot harder” said Hamilton, who is ranked third in the Formula One standings. While Mr. Button said to raucous applause “We are here today because Santander chooses the best, and Santander chose you… This will help you really concentrate on what you want to achieve in the future.” Both students were awarded the Santander Travel Grant of £ 5000 for research purposes.

Miss Sheetal Sharma a PhD student at the School of Health and Social Care has just returned from her visits to Barcelona and Buenos Aires; where she worked with the University of Buenos Aires, Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy (Argentina) Barcelona University (Spain) and Bournemouth University (BU). Both belong to theSantander overseas network. Sheetal’sNepal based-research looks to better understand the constraints of care-seeking behaviour in maternal health and will determine the ways to improve wellbeing through decrease in maternal, neonatal and infant mortality rates and diseases relating to reproductive and sexual health practices and assist in attaining the Millennium Development Goal 5.

From the School of Tourism Mr. Rami Mhanna, as part of his PhD research, will do research in mega-sport events. His research focuses on exploring stakeholders’ perceptions of leveraging legacy outcomes of different sized mega sport events. He will use the travel grant to visit the 3 cities that host the forthcoming international sporting events: the London 2012 Summer Olympics, Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup in Brazil 2014.

Ana Patricia Botín, in a follow-on ceremony attended by the UK Minister for Universities and Science Mr. David Willetts and Mr. Eric Thompson, president of Universities UK and 60 UK university chancellors, pledged a further 700 scholarships plus £1.5m in extra funding to UK universities, and of a Santander programme to place graduates from UK universities in 500 internships with small- and medium-sized firms, as graduate unemployment, was “one of the most pressing issues for the UK economy”.

Only 5 Santander bursaries of up to £5000 are awarded per year which aims to reward the most academically gifted students from countries that are supported by the Santander Universidades scheme.

EU funding regulations made simples!

EU

New year’s day 2013 is an important day for those of you undertaking EU research as this is when it officially becomes simpler to get your money off the commission. The new legislation to be introduced on January 1st will cut red tape, enabling increased transparency and higher accountability of all involved in dealing with EU finances. It moves the protection of EU financial interests to a higher level.

The complaints of organizations such as BU have at last been listened to and the new rules focus on simpler and faster access to funds while strengthening accountability in the manner in which taxpayers’ money is spent. New rules include the scrapping of the obligation to open separate bank accounts, shortening the time for payments to beneficiaries (30, 60 or 90 days depending on the complexity of the deliverables), more use of lump sums and flat rates for smaller amounts, no need to fill in the same details every time one applies for EU funds, on-line applications and other measures in order to focus more on results and less on paper work…

For any of you interested in learning more about the new rules and regulations, check out the EC Financial Regulation site.

 

Filling a pair of big REF shoes

Uncategorized

Second week into my secondment at the Research Development Unit, gearing myself ready to cover for Anita Somner during her maternity leave, it is beginning to dawn on me, the enormity of the task I have in hand. Not least because of the experience and expertise as demonstrated by Anita in all things REF-related has left me with the horror feeling that I may not be able to fill those Size 13 (!!) shoes, but also the new roles and responsibilities as well as steep learning that come with the job.

I have made it sound like a bad thing.

Believe me, it’s not.

Next year in the REF calendar, is a pivotal one with various important and exciting challenges at different points of the year and I welcome them with open arms.

So if you have any REF-related query, please feel free to contact me. I cannot promise you that at this point I will know all the answers to your question, but I can promise you that I will definitely do my best, to find out those answers to your question.

BU REF Code of Practice gets the green light!

BU research, Research assessment

Since submitting the BU Research Excellence Framework (REF) Code of Practice to the REF Team at HEFCE in April (see previous blog post for details), we have been waiting for their feedback as to whether our Code meets the requirements and guidance on equality and diversity considerations for our REF preparations and submission. We finally had confimation from HEFCE on Monday that the REF Equality and Diversity Panel had reviewed all the Codes that had been submitted in April and that our Code did indeed meet the REF Team’s criteria and is now officially approved! This is great news and means that we can now make it available here on the BU Research Blog.

A PDF copy of the Code and the recently published BU REF Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) will be circulated to academic staff in due course but you can access your copy here in the meantime. For the BU REF FAQs, which accompany the Code, a new tab has been added to the Blog (see REF tab above). Here you’ll find a series of questions and answers on a range of topics that should hopefully help with any initial burning issues you may have about the REF and our preparations here at BU. If you have a question that is not answered in the FAQs, please do leave a response to the relevant FAQ page on the Blog and we will follow this up for you. Alternatively you can contact me or Julie Northam in the Research Development Unit via email.

For more information about the REF at BU, see the previous REF posts on the Blog by clicking on the ‘ref’ tag. You can also access additional information from the REF website.

Last day for submissions to the Marie Curie Internal Peer Review!

EU

With the  Calls for Proposals   released and the deadline next month, this is your one and only chance to make use of our expert internal peer review of your Marie Curie submission.  I am thrilled that two of our excellent recipients of this funding – Rudy Gozlan and Rob Britton – have agreed to be the reviewers for our specialist RPRS internal peer review panel for the Marie Curie submissions to help you. Rudy and Rob will review yoru draft and give you feedback on any issues they can foresee given their experience and highlight any areas which should be addressed to maximise your chance of success before you submit in August.  You will receive your feedback on July 20th, which gives you plenty of time to tweak your proposal and get it submitted on time. There are no forms to fill in; just save a copy of your application as a PDF/ Word document and email over.

We are very lucky to have such fantastic expertise within our institution so please do take full advantage of it :)

FP7 Work Programmes Released!

EU

It’s the moment we have been waiting for all year – the final FP7 Work Programmes ever are released today!

You should be well aware of what is coming up in these now, given the previous orientation papers and news I have kept you up to date with but it is useful to have the solid final documents here at last!

I will be working over the next week to summarise the hideous Work Programmes for you in to nice searchable and easy to use formats, which will enable you to see if there are any calls you are interested in without having to trawl through the documents. I will keep you posted as to when these are available. Links to the actual Work Programmes in the meantime are:

The future of Erasmus

EU

BU had had a successful track record with Erasmus, Erasmus Mundus, Leonardo da Vinci and other Lifelong Learning programme initiatives so I am pleased to have an update on these in Horizon 2020. This year the Erasmus scheme is 25 years old it’s good to see that education and youth policies remain high on the EU agenda and features heavily in documents such as Europe 2020 and Education and Youth 2020 strategy.

In order to avoid duplication and increase simplification, for Horizon 2020 the lifelong learning programmes, Erasmus, Grundtvig, Leonardo and Cornelius, Youth in Action and other smaller programmes will be compressed into 3 Erasmus for All initiatives with a whopping €19billion budget. The current 7 different co-financing rules will all be harmonised into one set of rules for all schemes within this programme. Also under the current programmes we need to have an Erasmus University Charter which will still be needed. Once you have it you never need to apply again, which is good for BU as we already have it.  This Charter covers different aspects of mobility for staff, students and placements and the EC are currently debating how best they can amalgamate these without making places like BU having to apply from scratch again. The three proposed Erasmus for All initiatives are:

1. Learning Mobility: This will focus on individuals and will have 63% of the budget. It will target staff (youth workers, school workers, teachers, trainers) and Higher Education students and Masters students. It will also cover volunteering and youth exchanges for young people and mobility outside of the EU.  So what does this mean for us? Well, more mobility is available as Erasmus has an international focus, not just EU. I will offer high quality joint Masters degrees through consortiums of universities and also will provide us with student loan guarantees to boost mobility.

2. Cooperation Projects: This will have 25% of the budget which will be used to support cooperation in order to achieve innovation and good practice which it will achieve through strategic partnership support between various stakeholders (including education to education and education to businesses). It wants to use funding to explore how we can make graduates more employable – what skills and competencies for graduates need to be employed in certain  sectors. It will also support large scale partnerships between higher education institutes and businesses through large ‘knowledge alliances’ (up to €1m) and support third county capacity building. So what does this mean for us? The will be Erasmus Clusters which have intense cooperation between countries which we need to be part of. We need to also get involved with businesses to achieve the knowledge alliance aspects and we can also now target countries outside of the EU to build working relationships with. Finally we could start to use strategic partnerships through this type of funding to establish future Marie Curie fellowships.

3. Policy Support: This funds holds 4% of the budget and will be used for policy reform, particularly this policies mentioned in the introduction. It will support the valorisation and implementation of EU transparency tools, policy dialogue with stakeholders and will cover the entire world and not just the EU. So what does this mean for us? We can get involved with countries sours de of Europe and contribute to policy development.

What about Jean Monnet and sport funding? Don’t worry these will also exist in Erasmus for All. Jean Monnet will remain pretty much exactly how it is supporting institutions who promote European citizenship. As for sport, it was determined by the EC that many aspects of sport research involve the need for learning, such as why racism exists in sport, and so they have included it within the Erasmus for All scheme.

By early 2013 the European Parliament would have reviewed and agreed the final proposals for Erasmus for All and so we will know the final details as how it will look and confirmation of the budgets etc at this point. I will of course keep you updated each time in receive any information.

EPSRC Overseas Travel Grants – Call

BU research, Funding opportunities, Uncategorized

Introduction

Overseas travel grants provide funding for international travel and subsistence. You can use them to visit recognised non-UK centres to study new techniques and to travel from the UK to start or develop international collaborations.

There is no limit on amount of funding and no closing dates.

Salary and indirect costs

In addition to travel and subsistence, the principal investigator can request funds to cover their salary and indirect costs. But funding is not available through this scheme to specifically support sabbatical absences or conference attendance. Consumables and equipment (e.g. laptops) are not covered under this scheme.

Number of people

The OTG should normally be for the support of the named principal investigator only. Support for other staff such as PhD students and researcher co-investigators can be requested although their inclusion should be fully justified.

Timing and the length of the grant

There is no upper limit on the length of grant.

If the funding decision for an OTG comes after the requested start date of the grant, the funding cannot be backdated. EPSRC do not allow any expenditure incurred before the announcement date to be charged to the grant. So please ensure you leave enough time for processing, which is currently at least 12 weeks before the proposed visit.

Where can you go

As long as the visit is to a recognised research centre there are no restrictions on which countries can be visited. If you need a visa to enter a country, you can include the cost of obtaining a visa in your proposal. But OTGs are exclusively for travel abroad, outside the UK. However you can apply for funding for researchers from abroad to visit the UK as a visiting researcher on a research grant proposal.

Linking OTG proposals to an existing ESPRC research grant

You do not need to link an OTG proposal to an existing EPSRC research grant. But there is an expectation that any new techniques learned or collaborations formed may lead to future research proposals.

OTGs and first grants

An applicant who has been a Principle Investigator on an OTG would be eligible to apply for a first grant. Applying for an OTG does not affect eligibility for the first grant scheme.

Support for researchers applying to Framework Programme 7

You can use overseas travel grants to help UK researchers to start or foster international collaborations to develop high-quality bids to Framework Programme 7 (FP7). Your application should address how the grant will help develop collaborations with European researchers for a FP7 bid.

Who can apply

Overseas travel grants (OTGs) are open to any full-time investigator employed by a recognised UK research organisation (excluding PhD students and PDRAs). Our funding guide gives full details of eligibility of organisations and individuals.

How to apply

You can apply for travel and subsistence, salary costs of the principal investigator for time spent on the grant, and indirect costs. There are no closing dates and you can apply at any time. You can apply for funding to visit one centre or several centres.

You should submit your proposal through the research councils’ joint electronic submission (Je-S) system. Select document type ‘standard proposal’ and scheme ‘overseas travel grant’. As these are usually smaller grants than standard responsive mode applications, it may not be appropriate for your description of the proposed research to fill the allocated 6 sides A4. Please complete as much as required to fully justify your intended visit.

Assessment

Proposals are assessed through our peer review process. If a proposal gets supportive referees’ comments, funding may be approved without consideration at a prioritisation panel. We try to provide a fast turnaround for these proposals but advise you to apply at least 12 weeks before the proposed visit.

More information

If you would like to discuss a possible proposal, or if you have any questions regarding applications for funding to develop collaborations for FP7 proposals than please search our staff contacts to find the person responsible for your research area. We cannot supply examples of successful OTG applications as these proposals have been submitted to us in confidence.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

EPSRC Visiting Researchers call

BU research, Funding opportunities

EPSRC can provide funding for research scientists and engineers of acknowledged standing to visit a UK research organisation. The visiting researcher can be from anywhere in the world, including the UK.

Funding

Up to 12 months’ funding is available per visiting researcher to cover salary costs, travel and subsistence. The researcher can either make one long visit or a series of shorter visits within the 12-month period.

If the proposal is successful, EPSRC will make a grant to the host UK research organisation.

How to apply

There are no closing dates – you can apply at any time. The host UK researcher needs to apply for funding, not the visiting researcher.

Visiting researchers are part of EPSRC’s research base funding where you can apply at any time and in any area of our remit. You can ask for funding for one or more visiting researchers only as part of a larger research proposal.

You should submit your proposal electronically through the Research Councils’ joint electronic submission system (Je-S) as a standard proposal.

The research organisation should include Estates Costs and Indirect Costs for any Visiting Researcher regardless of whether the support being requested includes a salary contribution or is only Travel and Subsistence.

Assessment

Funding applications are assessed using the same peer review process as other responsive mode research proposals.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

SpoGo Digital Challenge

Funding opportunities

SpoGo are looking for the 100 best technology-based ideas to tackle the nation’s best excuses and get more people to enjoy sport and fitness. As long as it’s digital and technological, the most genuine, innovative and fun idea will receive £10,000 to make it a reality. Even if your idea isn’t chosen to win by the tech panel, the most popular idea will win a £1,000prize.

Your idea can be a mobile phone app, social media campaign or web development. And if you already love an existing product or service let us know and we’ll feature the best on spogo.co.uk so even more people can enjoy it. Check out these links for more competition info, inspiration, data sources, and info about spogo.

We’re happy for you to submit ideas about anything, but our theme is ‘tackling the nation’s best excuses’ for not doing exercise.

– Can’t get off the couch? Create an app that knows when you’ve been sitting for too long

– Don’t know how to get to the gym? Use travel data to plan your journey

– Don’t know where to do sport or fitness? Come up with a social media campaign to create awareness for spogo!

Once you’ve entered your idea, don’t forget to tell everyone on your Facebook, Twitter, or blog – let’s get those votes coming in! The competition closes for votes and entries at the end of the Olympics so make sure you get yours in before August 12th.

If you have any questions, you can contact info@spogo.co.uk and they will be happy to help!

To submit an idea, please click the new idea link below. You will then be asked to add a title and choose a campaign for the new idea. You will also have the option to add tags to the idea. To vote on an idea, simply click the up or down thumb to the left of the idea title/description. And to add a comment, click in the box below the idea.

Submit New Idea

BU Studentships Competition 2013 – Project Proposal Writing Workshop

PG research

The 2013 BU Studentships internal competition will be launched next term with opportunities for up to 40 matched funded PhD projects. As in previous years, the studentships will be awarded to supervisory teams on the basis of a competitive process across the whole of BU. In selecting proposals for funding, emphasis will be placed on the excellence of the research and quality of proposal in the first instance. Strategic fit with REF, societal impact and opportunity for public engagement will also be assessed.

To support academics in seeking matched funding and in preparation of their project proposals, the Graduate School will be running a series of events over the next few months, starting with two project proposal writing workshops facilitated by John Wakeford from the Missenden Centre.

There will be two workshops on Tuesday 24th July (am and pm) to help Supervisors to develop and strengthen their project proposal applications to the internal competition. Peter Delgado (RDU Commercialisation and KTP Officer) will also be available to provide advice and support in securing matched funding.  Participants should have some initial proposal ideas in preparation to focus discussion on the day.

Tuesday 24th July, Morning Session (09:00-13:30) – Venue tbc (Draft Agenda)

09:00 Arrival & Coffee

09:15 Studentship Proposal Writing Workshop (part I) – John Wakeford

  • Agenda sharing (participant introductions and identifying concerns and priorities to be covered).
  • Reviewing good research bid.
  • What to do before applying.
  • Writing a good application.

10:45 Institutional Context (information on the BU PhD Studentship Competition 2013 and the support of the Graduate School) – Professor Tiantian Zhang

11:00 Coffee Break

11:15 Studentship Proposal Writing Workshop (part II) – John Wakeford

  • Advising colleagues on draft applications.
  • Plenary feedback.
  • Questions and discussion.
  • Reflecting after having an application turned down.
  • Action planning: individual participants draw up plans for progressing own research.
  • Participants make suggestions to the university to help those bidding for funds.

12:30 Lunch

13:00 Engaging Matched Funders – Peter Delgado

13:30 Close

 

Tuesday 24th July, Afternoon Session (12:30 – 17:00) – Venue tbc (Draft Agenda)

12:30 Arrival & Lunch

13:00 Engaging Matched Funders – Peter Delgado

13:30 Studentship Context incl 2013 Competition – Professor Tiantian Zhang

13:45 Studentship Proposal Writing Workshop (part I) – John Wakeford

  • Agenda sharing (participant introductions and identifying concerns and priorities to be covered).
  • Reviewing good research bid.
  • What to do before applying.
  • Writing a good application.

15:15 Tea Break

15:30 Studentship Proposal Writing Workshop (part II) – John Wakeford

  • Advising colleagues on draft applications.
  • Plenary feedback.
  • Questions and discussion.
  • Reflecting after having an application turned down.
  • Action planning: individual participants draw up plans for progressing own research.
  • Participants make suggestions to the university to help those bidding for funds.

17:00 Close

Similar sessions have been very well attended previously and spaces are limited. To book a place on either session, please email the Graduate School (graduateschool@bournemouth.ac.uk).

What is the ERC?

EU

I tend not to blog too much about the European Research Council (ERC) grants within FP7 as they are so competitive and not really applicable for the overwhelming majority of researchers throughout the world, bit as I’m giving an update on Horizon 2020 and because the ERC budget is expected to go up massively, it seems important to cover it. The ERC is designed for the crème de la crème of the world’s researchers. This scheme has a budget of €7.5 billion which is used to fund frontier research projects, focusing in excellence and takes a bottom up approach. The scheme is open to researchers from anywhere in the world and they don’t have to have any partners or can have a whole team. There are 4 types of grant under the ERC:

1. Starting Grants: for researchers 2-7 years post-PhD looking for up to €2m funding for a maximum of 5 years

2. Advanced Grants: for researchers with a ‘significant track record’ of research achievements over a 10 year period looking for up to €3.5m over a maximum of 5 years

3. Synergy Grants: for 2-4 Principal Investigators looking for up to €15m for a maximum of 6 years

4. Proof-of-Concept: for ERC grant holders looking to bridge the gap between research and the earliest stage of marketable innovation, up to €150k

The budgets are high for individual projects and the topic flexible so on paper seems like a great scheme.  Indeed more than 2, 600 Principal Investigators based in 480 Host Institutions in 26 countries have received funds under this scheme since 2007. And the UK is in the top 5 in terms of success rates and we are the country where  the majority of ERC is hosted; with Cambridge and Oxford as the top 2 host institutions in the whole programme.

However the scheme is super competitive; it has an average 12% success rate. All schemes have reduced in their success rates over the last 2 years. It is also biased towards certain institutions, with 50% of Principal Investigators being based in just 50 institutions. And lastly, it is mostly geared towards the physical sciences, life sciences and engineering as it funds ‘risky’ research and is looking for competitiveness which social sciences and humanities often can’t offer.

So overall, despite the fact that for Horizon 2020 the budget will increase (as will the number of applications) unless you are one of the best researchers in the world (and can prove it), working in a uni popular with the ERC and if you have a truly blue skies research project based in the hard sciences and don’t mind a low success rate  then this scheme isn’t for you. If you do match this description then you will be pleased to hear there are no major reshaping plans for the scheme under Horizon 2020, just a recognition that the scientific governance of the scheme needs to be strengthened and links between this and other schemes also strengthened.