The ERC is a very competitive grant with demanding requirements that can be highly counterintuitive when compared to other funding opportunities. Writing a competitive ERC application is no easy task. It requires both a firm grasp at the grant’s written rules as well as the “unwritten” and “elusive” expectations for success.
This is why we’ve put together the “ERC Academy” which includes two courses:
- The “ERC Basics” – Learn the essential rules, requirements and terminology of the ERC grant.
- The “ERC Beyond” – Learn the counterintuitive, elusive and conceptual parts of the ERC grant.
Together, the courses cover all the important information for ERC success.
Click each title below to read in full detail about each specific course, and register below to begin your ERC journey!
The objective and added value:
In this course, we cover the essential rules, terminology and technical requirements of ERC. This includes information from the official documentation and EC resources: the ERC Work Program, ERC Guide for Applicants and the online submission system, as well as important tips based on our years of hands-on experience with thousands of ERC proposals.
Therefore, this course is ideal for potential ERC applicants who are not yet familiar with this grant and would like to learn more about it.
From experience, understanding ERC technicalities is a step that applicants tend to skip. However, by doing so they are missing crucial information which can directly affect the eligibility and competitiveness of the grant application. We know that reading all the official documents can be a tedious task – this is why we created this course to walk you through all these “boring” (yet essential) technicalities and clarify the less intuitive rules and policies.
The topics of the course include:
Introduction to ERC – Basic principles and what it’s all about?
Eligibility
The ERC PI’s profile – benchmarks for competitiveness
The ERC project in a nutshell
The evaluation process and review panels
The ERC Interview
The Evaluation summary report
The ERC budget
The online submission system and online forms
The ERC application documents and annexes
The objective and added value:
The “ERC Beyond” course conveys to participants information that is beyond the ERC official documents. From experience, we understand that what creates highly competitive applications is a firm grasp of the elusive and unwritten rules of this grant. For example, the sole evaluation criterion in ERC is “excellence”, but many find this concept quite elusive. Indeed, it cannot be understood from simply reading the official documents. In this course we accelerate to the counterintuitive, elusive and conceptual parts of the ERC grant, deciphering “excellence”, alongside additional unwritten and conceptual rules for success.
The topics of this course include:
The competitive PI profile – who is “ERC Material”?
What constitutes the required Scientific Excellence?
The unique nature of ERC: high-risk, high-gain, non-incremental work
Selecting and presenting the scientific approach
Collaborations in ERC
Review panel selection and the panel-application reciprocal effect
Suggested ERC thinking process
Ethical issues
And more…
The “ERC Basics” course was built with applicants with no ERC experience in mind. For those applicants, it is highly recommended to watch it as an introduction to the “ERC Beyond”. More experienced applicants may briefly watch selected parts of this course as a quick refresher or choose to go straight away to the “ERC Beyond”
The objectives & added value:
The “ERC Beyond” course conveys to participants information that is beyond the ERC guide for applicants. From experience, we understand that what creates highly competitive applications is a firm grasp of the programme’s elusive and unwritten conceptual rules. Therefore, this course accelerates to the counterintuitive, elusive and conceptual parts of the ERC grant.
The sole evaluation criterion in ERC is “excellence”. This is exactly where we come in. We decipher “excellence”, alongside additional unwritten and conceptual rules for success.
Note: To achieve a competitive proposal, it is imperative to acquire a firm grasp at the funding scheme’s basic requirements and rules, as well as its more conceptual and unwritten expectations. To ensure this, we offer our “ERC Basics” course (which we recommend for first-time ERC applicants), as an important prerequisite to the “ERC Beyond” course.
The topics of this course include:
- The competitive PI profile – who is “ERC Material”?
- What constitutes the required Scientific Excellence?
- The unique nature of ERC: high-risk, high-gain, non-incremental work
- Hypothesis for ERC – how to do it right
- How to write a convincing methodology chapter
- Collaborations in ERC
- Review panel selection and the panel-application reciprocal effect
- Suggested ERC thinking process
- ERC calls – Starting, Advanced, Consolidator and Synergy
- Ethical issues
- And more…
During the course, we keep in mind the point of view of the reviewers. By knowing what reviewers are looking for, we know exactly what researchers should focus on and what they should avoid in the writing process.
Ready to begin?
Choose the relevant option below:
Join an upcoming live course
Access to the pre-recorded ‘Basics’ course is included in this package.
Upcoming courses:
21 July / 14 September, 2022
Price: £1195
Watch the pre-recorded versions
Watch the pre-recorded versions of these courses at your own time & pace.
Price: £795
Book these courses for a group
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Do you have any questions about these courses before signing up? Contact us!