Rise follows increase in applications for Starting Grants revealed earlier this month
The number of applications for the 2021 round of the European Research Council’s Consolidator Grants, which fund mid-career researchers, was 5.6 per cent higher than for the 2020 round, according to the funder.
Announced on 23 April, the news is the latest evidence that interest in ERC funding has risen across its various schemes, with consequences for success rates. The ERC said earlier this month that applications for the 2021 round of its Starting Grants for early career researchers were up by 24 per cent in a year, and that the success rate for the 2020 round of its Advanced Grants for established researchers had dropped to just 8 per cent.
The funder said it received 2,648 proposals for the 2021 Consolidator Grant call, up from 2,506 in 2020. It has earmarked €633 million for roughly 317 projects, giving an expected success rate of 12 per cent, compared with 13 per cent a year earlier.
Statistics for the two Consolidator Grant rounds show that applications for the life sciences domain were up by 9.7 per cent, for social sciences and humanities by 9.1 per cent, and for physical sciences and engineering by 0.9 per cent.
The ERC said the breakdown of applicants by gender was essentially unchanged. Women submitted 33.5 per cent of Consolidator Grant proposals in 2021, and 33.6 per cent in 2020.
Winning projects will be announced in March 2022.