Marie Curie Fellows Association in liquidation

• Call Title: Call for proposals for ERC Advanced Investigators Grant

• Call identifier: ERC-2011-AdG

• Date of publication³¹: 2 November 2010.

• Electronic proposal submission deadlines³² (single submission of full proposal): ³³

1. Panels PE1 - PE10 (Physical Sciences & Engineering): 9 February 2011 17.00.00 (Brussels local time)

2. Panels LS1 – LS9 (Life Sciences): 10 March 2011 17.00.00 (Brussels local time)

3. Panels SH1 – SH6 (Social Sciences & Humanities): 6 April 2011 17.00.00 (Brussels local time)

• Indicative budget: EUR 661.4m from 2011 budget³⁴

N.B.: The ERC Scientific Council has established the following indicative percentage budgets for each of the 3 main research domains:

Physical Sciences & Engineering: 40% Life Sciences: 35% Social Sciences & Humanities: 15%

In addition a "fourth domain" with an indicative budget of 10% has been established to fund research projects of a cross-panel and/or cross-domain nature.

The Union financial contribution shall be in the form of a grant to the budget corresponding to 100% of the total eligible and approved direct costs and a reimbursement of a flat-rate a contribution of 20% of the total eligible direct costs³⁵ towards indirect costs. Indicative budgets may permit a variation of the budget for each domain by a maximum of 10% of the total budget for the call; however the budget proportions allocated to projects in the three main research domains will be no lower than the percentages indicated. In addition, the final budget awarded per ERC call, following the evaluation of projects, may vary by up to 10% of the total value of the call if additional appropriations become available.

Activity: European Research Council Advanced Grant

Minimum number of participants: At least 1 independent legal entity established in one of the Member States, or one of the associated countries (in the case of the participation of more than one legal entity the participants are not obliged to establish a consortium agreement)

Eligibility criteria: see eligibility criteria in the work programme

Grant Portability: applicants should be aware of the portability features of ERC grants as described in the ERC model grant agreement.

Grant starting date: due to the ground-breaking nature of frontier research projects, it is expected that all projects start within 6 months from the award of the grant. ERC reserves the right to cancel a grant if the proposed start date goes beyond this limit.

Evaluation procedure (see also section 4 of the work programme):

The evaluation will take place in two steps following the single submission of a full proposal.

The evaluation is carried out through evaluation panels³⁶ that may be assisted by referees.

Proposals may be evaluated remotely.

The allocation of the proposals to the various panels will be based on the expressed preference of the applicant. Proposals may be allocated to a different panel with the agreement of both panel chairs concerned. An indicative budget will be allocated to each panel, in proportion to the budgetary demand of its assigned proposals. This indicative budget is calculated as the cumulative grant request of all proposals to the panel³⁷ divided by the cumulative grant request of all proposals to the domain of the call, multiplied by the total indicative budget of the domain.

Step 1: Following the submission of the proposal, Section 1 of the proposal (see section 4.5) will be assessed and marked.

Cross-panel or cross domain proposals will be identified as such, and the panel may request additional reviews by experts.

Each panel will determine its budgetary cut-off level as a multiple of its indicative budget. The budgetary cut-off level may be set by each panel anywhere up to 3 times the panel's indicative budget. At the end of step 1, the panel will rank the proposals according to their marks. Proposals will be retained for Step 2 based on the ranked list and the determined budgetary cut-off level.

Step 2: The complete version of the retained proposals will be assessed and marked. The panel will agree on a ranked list.

Following the conclusion of the panel evaluations the following additional steps will be taken with the appropriate participation of the panel chairs.

Step 2a: Acting in concert across the three main domains, all the panel chairs or their deputies will bring forth and specifically discuss, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the scientific added value of proposals which have been identified as being of a cross-panel or cross-domain nature. In order to establish the ranked list of the "Fourth" domain, all panel chairs will further assess these proposals on the basis of the second evaluation criterion (Research project).

Step 2b: In accordance with the panel evaluations, a consolidated ranked list for proposals which are above the quality threshold will be prepared for each research domain. These proposals can be funded in order of priority from the respective domain budgets.

Any funds still available in any of the four domains, after exhausting the list of proposals over the quality threshold, will be distributed to the other domains according to the initial call budget breakdown.

Finally, a number of proposals (over the quality threshold) in the three main domain lists may also be kept in reserve to allow for eventualities such as the failure of the granting procedure to projects, the withdrawal of proposals, budget savings agreed during the granting procedure, or the availability of additional budget from other sources. Additional funds will also be distributed according to the initial call budget breakdown.

In addition the results of evaluations may be shared with relevant national agencies that may under certain conditions wish to fund specific ERC applicants themselves.

Evaluation criteria: See section 4 of the work programme for the applicable criteria Information on the modalities of the call and guidance to applicants on how to submit projects is available on: http://erc.europa.eu http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/appmanager/participants/portal

-------------------------------------------------------------- 31 The Director-General responsible for the call may publish it up to one month prior to or after the envisaged date of publication 32 The Director-General responsible may delay this deadline by up to two months 33 Please consult Annex 1 of the Ideas Work Programme for the panel description 34 Under the condition that the draft budget for 2011 is adopted without modifications by the budgetary authority 35 Excluding the direct costs for subcontracting and the costs of resources made available by third parties which are not used on the premises of the host institution. 36 Panel members will be compensated on the evaluation tasks they perform. Additional reimbursement of travel and subsistence will be made for assignments involving travel. Referees who may assist the evaluation panels will not be compensated. 37 Proposals containing grant requests above the maximum limit will be treated as at the limit for the purpose of calculating these indicative budgets.