When submitting a grant proposal, our motivation is to have the reviewer on “our side” – enthusiastic and positive about our project. In the grant review context, this is largely so that reviewers will write a positive review. This is done to increase the chance that the grant is retained Read more…
ERC grant funds frontier research which distinctly focuses on challenging novel concepts. The typical expectation in ERC is to present large-sized projects. Such projects justify a fairly high budget for a typical duration of 60 months (or 72 months for Synergy Grants). In this context, we wish to highlight a Read more…
Months of writing and preparation have finally led to the long-awaited moment of submitting the ERC grant proposal. As the ERC deadline quickly approaches, it is common to feel last minute nerves. We do not want these to result in forgetting any important steps in the submission process. To help, Read more…
Once researchers have an innovative idea at hand, acquiring resources for implementation becomes the center of their attention. They spend months curating highly competitive grant proposals that will hopefully secure them much needed funding. Working with hundreds of such hopeful and dedicated applicants enables us to note different trends that Read more…
ERC has a bottom-up approach which means it can fund virtually any topic of research. However, this does not mean that it is open to any type of research. With the highly competitive written and unwritten rules of ERC, some research types simply fall short of the ERC requirements for Read more…
Excluding the ERC Synergy grant, ERC grants are personal. This means that the ERC AdG, CoG and StG projects cannot be collaborative efforts. Since many applicants are used to working in collaboration with their peers and colleagues – this comes as a contrast and strikes as counter-intuitive. In many other Read more…
Throughout the years, our team continues to encounter one repeating issue with countless ERC applicants regarding the ERC grant writing phase of their grant proposal. In general, grant writing is the bread and butter of any researcher. Therefore, the ERC application will surely not be a first attempt at applying Read more…
Our most initial communications with new researchers working on Horizon 2020 or ERC grant proposals include an overview of the expected evaluation process for each respective grant. Such an overview is based on our experience working with countless grant applications and allows us to track winning grant proposals and note Read more…
A prevailing comment responsible for the failure of many ERC Advanced, Starting and Consolidator grants applications pertains to the ‘incremental nature’ of the proposed research. Why is that? How can one successfully design a project which reflects the naturally occurring progress forward which builds on past achievements, current knowledge, expertise, Read more…
ERC and FET-Open are very different funding schemes under Horizon 2020. To name a few differences – ERC is an individual grant, while FET-Open is a collaborative project. ERC is looking into excellence in basic research, while FET-Open is seeking Future and Emerging Technologies and it is by-definition more applicative. Read more…