“Writing a competitive ERC Proposal“: Trainings in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte

09-Aug-2019

“Writing a competitive ERC Proposal“: Trainings in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte organized by ENRICH in Brazil and EURAXESS (30.7. – 5.8. 2019)

The European Research Council (ERC), a funding agency for investigator-driven frontier research established by the European Commission, seeks to encourage ambitious research proposals through competitive funding of research across all fields on the sole basis of scientific excellence.

An integral part of the EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020 and its upcoming successor programme Horizon Europe (2021-2027), the ERC is open to researchers of all nationalities who are interested in conducting research in Europe.  Furthermore, the ERC recently introduced the option that one Principal Investigator within an ERC Synergy Grant group (with two to maximum four Principal Investigators joining forces to tackle ambitious research problems) can at any one time be hosted by an institution outside of the EU or Associated Countries (AC). This provides new participation opportunities for resesarchers based in countries such as Brazil or any other LAC country.

Against this backdrop, three trainings focusing on the the task of writing a competitive ERC proposal recently took place in Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro (hosted by Fundação Getúlio Vargas  – FGV) and Belo Horizonte (hosted by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais -FAPEMIG). Each attended by approximately 60 participants, the trainings included an online Q+A session in which ERC evaluators (panel members) and/or ERC grantees from Brazil shared their experiences and tips for prospective ERC applicants. Furthermore, the discussion of a successful ERC proposal, generously made available on the web by its Principal Investigator, Patrick Meyfroidt (https://ercmidland.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/erc_stg_midland_projectdescription.pdf) provided the opportunity to demonstrate some key features of ERC proposals, e.g. the near-complete freedom offered to researchers in terms of proposal structure and the challenge of capturing substantial information on the project in only five pages.  Lively discussions and Q+A sessions demonstrated the interest of participants in funding and collaboration opportunities provided by the ERC.  The well-received training also informed about related sources of information for research funding such as the CONFAP-ERC agreement, the services offered to researchers by EURAXESS and the ENRICH hub activities.

(Speakers: Ylva Huber – ERC National Contact Point Austria; Margarida Telo da Gama, Silvia Helena Koller – ERC Panel Members; Mario Barbatti – ERC Advanced Grantee, Roberto Rinaldi – ERC Consolidator Grantee; Charlotte Grawitz, Daniel Costa – EURAXESS Brazil and other Latin America and Caribbean countries (LAC); Goret Pereira Paulo  – NCP Social Sciences and Humanities, Brazil)