The European Research Council contributes to strengthen the European research location and assures the responsiveness of science to societal challenges.
On 28 January 2022, the European Research Council (ERC) celebrated its 15th anniversary in an event organised by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) under the French Presidency of the Council of the EU. In its journey of 15 years, the ERC contributed to strengthening Europe as a research location, offering talented researchers worldwide the opportunity to do research in Europe. According to the released statistics, the ERC provided funding for over 10’000 top researchers from 85 nations, employing 75’000 people in research teams in over 850 research institutions in the EU or Associated Countries. 9 Noble Prizes, 4 Fields Medals and 11 Wolf Prizes were awarded to ERC grantees, and over 200’000 articles from ERC projects were published in scientific journals. Last but not least, 2’200 patents and other IPR applications resulted from ERC funding, and over 400 start-ups were founded or co-founded by ERC Principal Investigators.
According to the former President of the ERC, Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, the start of the ERC was not simple. The research community lobbied for the ERC to become a reality already two decades before the ERC was officially launched in 2007. Mr Bourguignon added that the founding fathers and mothers shaped the ERC from nothing, setting the correct format and standards enabling trust of the scientific community. The current President of the ERC, Maria Leptin, highlighted that she would ensure the independence of the ERC and focus on curiosity-driven frontier research. Leptin also indicated that basic research and its classical grants would continue to be the main focus for the ERC.
During the conference, Otmar Wiestler, President of the Helmholtz Association, explained that ERC grants provide a fantastic recognition to a researcher’s CV; and set a real “benchmark for the EU research”. Wiestler emphasised that the ERC offers an exceptional opportunity for the most brilliant researchers to do exploratory research and provides support at different stages of the career through classical grants and complementarily grants to push the transfer of knowledge. Matthias Kleiner, President of the Leibniz Association, underlined the importance of the ECR to fund curiosity-driven research and to respect the freedom of science. He added that the relatively low success rate of the ERC grants should be increased, as many excellent research projects currently remain unfunded. Antoine Petit, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CNRS, pointed out that national funding agencies should consider investing in exceptional unfunded ERC projects through national funding.
Moreover, it was also discussed how investments in excellence in basic and frontier research, including ERC grants, are essential to assure the responsiveness of the science community to the most pressing European challenges. This became especially clear during the pandemic, when long-term investments in basic science contributed to the development of fast responses. The testimony of Uğur ŞAHIN, ERC grantee and founder of BioNTech, showed how his company, in collaboration with Pfizer, was able to quickly develop a vaccine against Covid-19 thanks to previous investments in basic science.
In the context of the war in Ukraine, Maria Leptin, the president of the ERC, encouraged the research community to accept refugee scientists from Ukraine and to support them. As a quick set-up is needed, with available measures in the short-term, the best way would be to focus on existing initiatives, for example, Scholars at Risk or other national initiatives that already support refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the ERC would not have the flexibility to come up with suitable grants and funding schemes due to structural reasons, at least in the short term. However, Europe as a research continent is still facing the problem of a divide in science investments, meaning that the majority of countries do not invest or do not have the means to invest sufficiently in R&D. Consequently, the ERC could contribute additionally to Twinning instruments to address these gaps (see SwissCore article).