On 9th July an information day on the ERC (European Research Council) calls was held at the University of Nottingham.

The ERC – or “Ideas” – is a programme within Framework Programme 7 which gives researchers in any discipline and at any stage of their research careers an opportunity to apply for a significant grant to advance knowledge in their field. Scientific excellence is the sole criterion by which applications are judged and the scheme is designed to fund proposals which are high risk, but have the potential of high reward. Unlike many other EC funding programmes within FP7, a single researcher can apply without the need to form a European consortium.

This makes the ERC programme a very popular one and success rates in the past have been relatively low. However, the EC is investing an increasing amount of funds into this scheme as FP7 progresses which should address the success rate issue.

The call for Starting Grants was released on 20th July, along with a raft of other FP7 calls, and will close at various dates later this year depending on discipline (Social Sciences & Humanities closes on 24th November; Physical Sciences & Engineering on 14th October; and Life Scienced on 9th November). The call for Advanced Grants has yet to be released but will likely come out later this year and close early 2011.

At the information day Dr Paula Cadima, a Research Programme Officer from the EC, talked about Starting and Advanced Investigator grants, including eligibility criteria and past success rates. Professor Martin Schröder, Head of Inorganic Chemistry at University of Nottingham, spoke about his experience applying for and running the ERC Advanced Grant COORDSPACE.

You can view both of their presentations below: