ERC grant management: Recommendations from LERU December 2010 Aims LERU members: Universiteit van Amsterdam Universitat de Barcelona University of Cambridge University of Edinburgh Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg Université de Genève Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Helsingin yliopisto (University of Helsinki) Universiteit Leiden Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Imperial College London University College London Lunds universitet Università degli Studi di Milano Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München University of Oxford Université Pierre et Marie Curie Université Paris-Sud 11 Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm Université de Strasbourg Universiteit Utrecht Universität Zürich This LERU note is intended to provide a high-level summary of responses received following a consultation process which involved all members of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) on the administration, operations and management of the European Research Council (ERC). * This paper was used as a framework for discussion at the LERU Rectors Assembly held at University College London on November 19th and 20th 2010. Prof. Helga Nowotny, President of the ERC Scientific Council, attended and addressed the Assembly. LERU welcomes the setting up of a task force to explore the various options and legal possibilities related to the future governance of the ERC, and hopes that this paper will contribute to the discussions taking place within the task force and at policy-making level. * The note is based on the outcomes of a consultation among LERU Rectors, Vice-Rectors for Research and the Community of the European Research Project Managers. The main author of the paper is Michael Browne, LEAR and Head of European Research and Development at University College London.
Introduction ERC grants have received a warm welcome from researchers world-wide as it provides them with an opportunity to engage in research projects that have previously not been funded at European level, and to establish their own research group in critical areas. LERU welcomes the ERC as the first pan-european research funding organisation for frontier research and is very much in favour of ERC grants. For LERU, the ERC has met a need that has existed for a long time across Europe. LERU fully supports the ERC s approach to stimulate research excellence in Europe by funding the very best researchers. LERU conducted a survey looking at the implementation of the ERC as a new funding scheme. The survey was designed to look at the administration and operations of both Starting and Advanced Grants schemes based on experiences to date within LERU. The survey focuses on the negotiation and management of ERC grants within the ERC Executive Agency (ERCEA) and considers future ERC funding streams under the current Framework Programme and beyond. The purpose of this paper is to provide a high-level summary of responses received from all members of the LERU community. Funding research excellence The ERC is the first European funding body to support investigator-driven frontier research. While the Framework Programme has traditionally promoted research cooperation and coordination of activities of organisations, the ERC is addressed to individual investigators. The ERC has influenced the European Research Area (ERA) agenda and has positively reinforced the importance of excellence as a criterion for funding research. LERU welcomes the positive spill-over the ERC has produced in national systems. France, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden and the Belgian Flanders are using the ERC assessment and ranking to give grants to runners up. Those who have met the quality criteria but could not be financed for lack of funds are funded through national schemes without further need for peer review assessment. LERU supports a powerful ERA and regards the ERC Scientific Council s mission to fund research excellence as a positive move in the development of European Research and Technological Innovation, and strongly supports its mission to support the very best researchers based solely on excellence. ERC Starting Grants LERU fully supports the concept of the ERC Starting Grants, which aim to support up-and-coming research leaders who are about to start or consolidate their career and conduct independent research. ERC Advanced Grants LERU fully supports the concept of the ERC Advanced Grant scheme. Funding highly ambitious, pioneering and unconventional projects is a positive move by the European Commission, and one that is warmly welcomed by LERU. ERC participation within LERU LERU s members have so far been extremely successful in applying to the ERC. About 200 ERC Starting Grants and 145 Advanced Grants have been awarded to researchers at LERU institutions. Given this high level of participation, LERU is well placed to provide a perspective on the ERC.
An appropriate funding structure for frontier research ERC grants were initially promoted as a simpler way of funding research projects, and hopes were high that the ERC as a funding structure would be easier to work with than the European Commission is for other FP7 grants. Over the past year or so, however, it has emerged that both the negotiation and management processes within the ERC Executive Agency (ERCEA) have become more detailed and more onerous for the applicants, to the extent that an amount of detail is requested that far exceeds the detail required for much larger multi-partner Collaborative Projects. This development is not in the spirit of ambitious research projects that by definition change during the course of a project to accommodate new ideas and where it is impossible to foresee all possible costs at the beginning of a five-year project. Following a consultation process, LERU hereby proposes nine recommendations to simplify the application, negotiation and management processes of the ERCEA as a structure appropriate for funding frontier research. Recommendations for evaluating ERC applications Evaluation Process ERC applicants to both the Starting and Advanced grants have been confused as to how their proposals have been marked. Some researchers who have applied more than once have been surprised to get lower marks on their second application, despite having taken the evaluators comments from the first application into account. Also, the evaluators comments do not seem to bear much of a relationship to the marks marks can be low whilst the comments can be very positive. Many applicants have expressed concerns about the evaluation procedure, which does not allow for excluding specific experts who are competitors of the applicant or known for having a contrary opinion on the science. Recommendation 1: LERU requests that the ERCEA introduces in the 2012 Work Programme the possibility to exclude at least one named expert in the field from the evaluation panel, in case a scientist s main competitor sits on the panel and marks down a proposal due to differences of opinion. Recommendations for negotiating ERC grants Eligible Direct Costs Whilst the ERCEA may feel that they already apply a flexible definition of direct eligible costs, LERU has observed a shift in ERCEA Project Officers querying eligible direct costs that have been eligible for previous ERC projects, are eligible under the rest of FP7, and are considered eligible by most other sponsors (examples: recruitment costs, use of specialist facilities, maintenance costs). Project Officers have moved away from the principle that costs incurred in accordance with the institution s normal accounting procedures are eligible direct costs. Recommendations 2 and 3: LERU urges the ERCEA to return to the basic definition of eligible direct costs (they have to be actual; incurred during the project; determined and recorded according to the usual accounting and manage-
ment principles/practices; used only to achieve project objectives; consistent with principles of economy, efficiency and effectiveness; exclusive of non-eligible costs). The ERCEA should move away from asking for justification of the same direct costs for each project that larger organisations with several ERC grants have - like LERU universities and move to accepting standard direct costs at institutional level instead of at project level, in accordance with such institution s normal accounting procedures. Subcontracting There is a new tendency at the ERCEA to consider the most minor tasks as subcontracts, e.g. printing, catering, when the normal institutional accounting procedure is to categorise them as simple purchases. It is often not practical or timely to label activities as subcontracts as it is not known before the project start date e.g. whether a conference will take place on university premises or at a third party. Recommendation 4: LERU requests that the ERCEA adopt a more flexible approach to budgets. Start Date The newly introduced target of six months from the opening of contract negotiation to the start date is too restrictive. It does not allow for PIs to finish previous research projects first, and reallocate staff to the ERC grant. It is also an arbitrary timeline as it depends mostly on which panel has evaluated the proposal as there can be between four to five months difference in panel decisions being made and contract negotiation processes to be opened. Any candidates from the reserve list may start up to a year later. On the other hand, successful candidates who wish to start early are often hindered to do so because the ethical review process is not carried out quickly enough. The six months time to grant is also completely arbitrary because it does not take into account any academic cycles. Most researchers wish to start a new project in October as it is the beginning of a new academic year across Europe, and most researchers change jobs at this time. If you have a start date at other times throughout the year, you are unlikely to get the best researchers for the project. An extended time to grant would also allow the host institution sufficient time to recruit staff to replace the ERC grant holder (e.g. teaching replacement). Recommendation 5: Whilst six months may be appropriate for a majority of ERC projects, this should not be fixed, and some flexibility for exceptional practical cases should be maintained for those researchers who wish to start their project up to one year after opening contract negotiation. Complementary Funding Contract negotiations often are reduced to arguments over research projects that run in parallel with an ERC project. It is contrary to normal academic practice for the ERCEA to assume that a scientist would only work on one project at a time. Especially for grants aimed at the most brilliant researchers, it should not come as a surprise that they have attracted funding from other sponsors as well. Usually those research projects complement each other and create synergies between different areas of science which create new ideas. Recommendation 6: LERU encourages the ERCEA to accept other research projects running in parallel as standard practice and looks forward to receiving further guidance on this issue next year.
Doctoral studies in Europe: excellence in researcher training Recommendations for managing ERC grants Multi-beneficiary contracts Whilst LERU accepts that multi-beneficiary contracts represent a minor part of the ERC funding scheme, there is currently no clear guidance with regard to when a multi-beneficiary contract is required which has caused problems for some LERU members. Many research projects include some form of collaboration with other parties, to the extent that other institutions sometimes host a member of an ERC team for several years to carry out fieldwork. There have been different approaches to when a separate beneficiary is required, or by whom a researcher working at another university should be employed. This leads to major confusion at the application stage. Multi-beneficiary ERC grants also raise several questions which require further clarification. There is general information relevant to these ERC grants in Annex II, General Conditions for ERC grant holders but further detail needs to be added to the Guide for Grant Holders. Multi-beneficiary projects face issues which are very similar to FP7 collaborative projects especially with regard to decision-making, transfer of funding between partners, intellectual property rights etc. Guidance on this type of activity is clearly defined in other areas of the Framework Programme. LERU has noticed that in some cases there is a need for Consortium Agreements to be signed between the beneficiaries and for further clarification on the role of the main host institution and the need for project management. Recommendation 7: LERU recommends more detailed guidance on how to include external partners in ERC applications, when a subcontract would be more appropriate, how to budget for external partners, and how to manage ERC projects that involve more than one beneficiary. Portability of grants The portability of ERC grants is a positive feature and ensures that researchers are given increased flexibility and ownership of their grant. However, this feature of ERC grants has presented a number of operational problems for LERU. The ERC has provided a letter template and a checklist for grant transfers, but would also appreciate further guidance on the written agreement between the initial host and the new host about the transfer of the project covering all aspects of the project, i.e. background and foreground of Knowledge, equipment, employees, and the transfer of remaining EU funds. Transferring grants has very serious implications for research staff recruited by the initial host (who face redundancy and re-employment) and for the transfer of equipment (it is unclear what records must be kept for audit purposes in relation to the transfer of ownership of equipment. Whilst the ERCEA has offered tailor made advice on each case, LERU feels that it is important to have formal documentation and guidance notes on this. Recommendation 8: LERU requests detailed guidance on the portability of ERC grants. Technical and Financial Reporting The ERC s new reporting structure has combined aspects of the financial and research reports. This does not follow the standard reporting structures that institutions are familiar with under Framework Programme 7, which is for technical reports to be compiled by the researcher, and for financial
reports to be completed by the institution s financial officer/administrator. Whilst merging technical and research reports for ERC grants may simplify the reporting process for the ERCEA, it makes administration and operational aspects of reporting for institutions more complicated. Recommendation 9: LERU requests to simplify the current reporting structure and to consider separating the research/technical and financial reporting. Proposed top-up for proof of concept mechanism ERC Grant holders are very positive about the possibility of top-up funding if suitable results are produced in their projects. This would fit well with the high-risk approach taken by the ERC to fund innovative projects. Great ideas should not only be brought to life, but they deserve to be fully explored. In most cases it takes more than five years to fully explore a real paradigm shift. When a project proposes a new idea in a discipline, which could bring about a paradigm shift either in the core discipline or one of its branches, such shifts in thinking are revolutionary for the discipline and need to be explored further. New paths are revealed into the discipline whose end points are not yet visible when applying for the initial ERC grant. Future funding schemes LERU strongly feels that the ERC and its initial successes are of strategic importance for the long term future of European research and technological development. The ERC is now an important component of EC funded research, and given its early success and high level of demand from researchers for ERC grants, it should grow in size and importance in subsequent programmes and ultimately evolve into a permanent Community structure. Should the ERC to be expanded as a funding scheme under the current Framework Programme and beyond - it is imperative that the key principle of excellence is maintained. This is what makes the ERC unique from all other European Commission funding agencies. Task Force for the future governance of the ERC LERU welcomes the setting up of a task force to explore the various options and legal possibilities related to the future governance of the ERC. LERU acknowledges that there is unlikely to be any significant change regarding the ERC s future governance until the Task Force delivers its results. With this note and the nine recommendations in it, LERU is happy to contribute to the debate on the future of the ERC and the ERCEA. LERU would be pleased to get more involved in the debate in the future and to keep working with the ERC and the ERCEA to improve its funding structure, so that it remains sustainable and appropriate for frontier research.
Doctoral studies in Europe: excellence in researcher training Conclusion The ERC has enhanced the concept of funding research excellence at a global level and has raised the status and visibility of European frontier research. LERU fully supports the Scientific Council s mission to reward innovative proposals by placing the emphasis on the quality of the idea rather than the research area and to put excellence at the heart of European Research. LERU welcomes the ERC as the first pan-european organisation for funding frontier research based solely on excellence. LERU supports the current funding model of Starting and Advanced Grant schemes and welcomes the ERC s newly proposed model of top-up funding. LERU has proposed nine recommendations, following a detailed consultation process, to help streamline and simplify the administrative and operational management of the ERCEA as a funding structure appropriate for frontier research. LERU acknowledges that some of the proposed changes may not be possible within the short-term due to the legal and financial rules that underpin Framework Programme 7 and the ERC. LERU therefore recommends that this paper and the proposed recommendations within it to be used to assist the recently deployed ERC Task Force and policy makers at the European Commission to explore ways of firmly positioning the ERC within the European Research Area and to ensure that the ERC is a sustainable funding structure appropriate for frontier research.
LERU Facts and Figures Together LERU member universities account for more than 450,000 students and more than 50,000 PhD students. Each year about 50,000 master degrees and 11,000 doctorates are awarded at LERU universities. The total research budget of LERU s members exceeds * 5 billion. About E 1 billion is granted by research councils, while approximately * 1.25 billion comes from contract research. The total sum of research grants from EU projects to LERU universities is approximately E 260 million. Approximately 20% of ERC grants have been awarded to researchers at LERU universities. More than 225 Nobel Prize and Field Medal winners have studied or worked at LERU universities. 50,000 academic staff and 52,000 non-academic staff work at the member institutions (hospital-only staff not included). LERU publishes its views on research and higher education in several types of publications, including position papers, advice papers, briefing papers and notes. LERU notes are short, timely statements providing concise analysis and specific advice in response to a pressing issue related to European research and higher education policies. They are often a product of LERU's standing engagement with certain issues and a result of intensive consultation among experts from the LERU universities. All LERU publications are freely available at www.leru.org. LERU Office Huis Bethlehem tel +32 16 32 99 71 www.leru.org Schapenstraat 34 fax +32 16 32 99 68 info@leru.org B-3000 Leuven Belgium