Prof. Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council (ERC), recently visited Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), where she learned about our university and our strategic initiatives and shared insights from the ERC perspective. During a session dedicated to celebrating EUR’s ERC laureates and sharing their success stories, the incredibly rare opportunity to have a Q&A with Prof. Leptin arose.
Would you like to know what insights were gained? Then keep on reading to find out!
*The questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity. At the end of this article, you can read the observations and remarks from Annelien Bredenoord and Ed Brinksma.
What does the ERC look for in an application for a synergy grant?
There are two important aspects of a synergy grant application. First, the peer review panel considers the excellence of the idea itself.
Secondly, the evaluators consider it important that the synergy of the team is genuine. The ERC takes into account whether the expertise of the principal investigators complement each other and if they work like a genuine team. This teamwork should progress naturally through the project development/application process. But keep in mind that during the interview, it will be visible to the panel whether the team is really working as a team (or if they’re not).
I'm an aspiring ERC applicant, and I see this grant as an opportunity to delve into a field which I’m passionate about, but that has not been part of my core research. I feel I have a good idea and the topic is under-explored with the methods I want. Is it a disadvantage that my CV doesn’t show that I have done research in this specific field/topic?
I congratulate you; I think you should do that, and that is what ERC grants are for. The nice thing about the grant is that you can write it however you want. In your question, your passion came through, the fact that you’re knowledgeable about the topic came through and you positioned it well. If you can write your application as well as you asked this question, the evaluation panel will see that. It’s fine to say “this is a new topic to me.” Your CV hopefully documents that you’ve done other relevant research successfully, even if it’s not in this field. So, your CV will show your previous work, and the text of the application demonstrates your thinking process and that you're on top of what you proposed. Be explicit in your application.
There are always conservative people on panels who might say “well (s)he’s never done anything like that” or “it's never been done before so I don't think it can be done.” But it is impossible to discover something if you only do what's been done before! Fortunately, other members on the panel do push back on that way of thinking.
Eveline Crone, ERC Vice President and EUR Professor, added that members of the ERC’s governing body, the Scientific Council, observe the peer review panels from time to time in order to protect the ERC principles and ensure that the level remains very, very high. However, they cannot decide on who gets the grant.
I want to apply for a Starting Grant. The Starting Grant is an individual grant, but I work in the cross-section between data scientists, doctors, behavioral scientists, designers and I need all those people for a project. How do I keep the grant application focused on myself, while acknowledging the fact that I am dependent on the team of people around me?
That's fine! Nowadays people recognise that in many fields you can’t do everything alone. The topic or project is your idea, and you can solicit help. You can even put the costs incurred in the grant. It's not a problem. Just make sure that everybody who's listed in the grant application by name knows that they’re listed and consents. Nobody expects you to sit in your own lab, close the doors and work on your own. Not at all. And again, just explain why you need what you need.
And for things that may be unclear, the best thing to do is to get your university grant officer to call the National Contact Point or the ERC and just find out. Ask, ask, ask - they're very helpful. Other things you can do is to ask colleagues who have gotten grants in the past for advice. And there are instructional videos on the ERC website as well that you can watch.
What are you most proud of as President of the ERC community, and, if you could change something about the ERC overnight, what would that be?
Although I’ve been the ERC President for only six months, I think we should be proud that we’ve defended the concept of frontier research, and the ERC’s independence. During my interview for this position, I said I would not change anything because the ERC is already excellent, and my job would be to ensure that the “gem remains polished.”
However, to protect excellence you have to “keep the ball rolling” and so that's what we're doing. For example, we are looking at whether the ERC’s selection process is up to 2022 standards and beyond. Since the ERC was created just over 15 years ago, we have to make sure that the ERC keeps up with the times, in order to maintain its excellence. And this is what we will continue to do.
What are your thoughts and views on how the ERC can make changes to its recognition and rewards structure and focus more on quality rather than quantity?
What the ERC Scientific Council has to do is to tell the applicants what is needed from them and what they will be judged on. And then we have to tell the panels what criteria they’re supposed to judge on.
Currently, there's some debate surrounding impact factors. It has become clear in discussions that there are a few differences between the scientific fields and that these differences really matter. It is also becoming clear that neither a narrative-only CV, nor a factual-only CV will suffice. There will have to be a convergence on the best bits of both.
Eveline Crone shared the Dutch NWO perspective: we decided with our task force on Research Assessment not to rush the decision. What we've seen at NWO, and they’ve been open about it, is that they pushed it a bit too far with the narrative CV, and now they're going back to how it used to be, finally ending up somewhere in between. We want to think about it deeply and make sure that we collect evidence from the community.
What do you consider to be points of improvement for the Erasmus university if you compare us to other universities that you have visited?
I’ve only been here for two hours but I was impressed by this visit! I heard about the work you’re doing on diversity and inclusion, which I think is very impressive. We don't know yet about the outcomes - so I'll be watching that space. But I've known Erasmus University Medical Center for a long time as many colleagues from my field of study come from here.
Concluding remarks from EUR’s Leadership
At the end of the session, EUR’s Rector Magnificus, Annelien Bredenoord, remarked that she was thankful to the EUR ERC laureates for openly sharing their stories. She noted that they are role models, not only for their colleagues, but also for the new generation of researchers. She encouraged them to use every opportunity to talk to larger audiences and share their experiences – both good and bad – because learning from our failures is just as important as celebrating successes. She concluded by telling them how proud EUR is of their achievements and how important they are to the EUR community.
EUR’s President, Ed Brinksma, echoed Annelien’s pride of the ERC laureates. He noted that the ERC laureates are a core element of EUR’s strategy and thanked Prof. Leptin for providing EUR with the opportunity to - for the first time - gather in one room and celebrate the ERC laureates in this way.
Applying for funding
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