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ERC calls ‘must open soon to avoid major negative impact’

Image: Lukasz Kobus, European Commission

Interim president of European Research Council asks research ministers to avoid grant delays

The interim president of the European Research Council, Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, has said that two of the funder’s 2021 calls must get underway soon to avoid a “major negative impact” on researchers.

Several ERC calls were due to open in January, but the ERC announced in December that they would have to be delayed due to the late adoption of the EU budget for 2021-27 and of the rules underpinning the Horizon Europe R&D programme within which the ERC sits.

The ERC told Research Professional News at the time that Starting Grants and Proof of Concept Grants, which fund early-career researchers and exploration of ideas with commercialisation potential, respectively, would definitely be affected, while Consolidator Grants for mid-career researchers might be affected.

Bourguignon (pictured) issued his warning to EU research ministers on 3 February, during the ministers’ first meeting of 2021.

He said the ERC’s 2021 calls for its Starting and Consolidator Grants “must open promptly and close at the end of March and mid-April respectively to avoid a major negative impact on the evaluation process and delayed granting”.

Bourguignon said ministers in the Council of the EU and MEPs in the European Parliament “must unite in achieving this very short-term goal”, adding that the ERC is “ready to implement” the calls.

The ERC said on 26 January that it had received “many queries” about the delays, and that it was “striving to preserve the deadlines for submission of proposals and the evaluation calendar as close as possible to that initially planned”. It added that it was aiming to publish draft versions of its 2021 calls “by the end of January or beginning of February”.

A Council official told Research Professional News on 3 February that the institution was hoping to adopt a joint position on the rules of Horizon Europe at a first reading in March. The Council timeline would see the Parliament approve the Council’s position in mid-April.

A ‘retroactive effect’ clause in the rules of Horizon Europe, agreed by the EU’s institutions in December 2020, states that the legal act should apply “from the beginning of the 2021 financial year”, but this has not yet enabled the ERC to open its calls.

Bourguignon also used his speech to stress the importance of sustained and predictable funding for research.

He said: “I strongly fear that a constant stream of new initiatives and policy priorities, as well as the boom and bust cycles we see in research funding, can actually distract the key future players, in particular women, from engaging themselves in this demanding career path.”