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 “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:

 

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:

1 February, 2022

Price: €1195

Learn more

Watch the pre-recorded versions

Watch the pre-recorded versions of these courses at your own time & pace.

Price: €795

Learn more

Book these courses for a group

Book a dedicated course for a group from your institution.

Learn more

See what past participants have said about our course:

Carmela Lutmar

“It was very detailed, very clear, extremely informative, and very helpful.”

“I found the workshop very useful and at the right pace – in terms of understanding the overall structure, and then gradually getting into the nitty-gritty.”

“I was very pleased with the workshop. The presentation was clear and well structured. The presentor answered all the questions and also remained very focused on the content so that the questions contributed to everyone. An important workshop for anyone who is interested in writing grant proposals.”

“The workshop was very informative including tips and information that can not be obtained elsewhere.”

“I did not know anything about the ERC process and the workshop has taught me a lot.”

Elisabeth Tauber

“Yes very satisfied. Beyond, in defining the “risk” concept and in introducing the “structural logic” of an ERC application. It helped a lot in thinking how to structure the research idea. That as good as a proposal can be, there are the risk factors of human reviewers liking or not the proposal. That it is not necessary to have already… Read more > “Elisabeth Tauber”

“Yes, definitely satisfied. Difficult issues were explained in an easy yet comprehensive way.”

Raffaella Di Cagno

“In general I am quite satisfied with the event. Certainly for those who have no knowledge of this type of call the meeting goal has been centered, vice versa for those who are already familiar with or for those who have already applied (with failure), the expectation is higher. The ERC call’s mission was very well defined. Another well developed… Read more > “Raffaella Di Cagno”

Erwin Rauch

“Very clear and structured presentation, competence of consultant. Experience with proposals that cannot be found in the internet.”

Francesco

“It went beyond the already available information that is out there by modeling the scientific method that should be followed by a successful research project proposal.”

Madan K Suwal

“It was a very detailed training.”

Martin Miles

“Great seminar. Very satisfied. Definitely insightful. Beyond – and different from – the information that is already out there. Well-organized, comprehensive, and well-paced presentation. Useful and insightful information. Both representatives are are very knowledgeable, excellent communicators and interact well when questioned. It was also very good to receive a copy of the presentation before and after the seminar.”

“The presentation was very good in helping me to see how I should structure my application to fit in ERC.”

 

Do you have any questions about these courses before signing up? Contact us!

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